


Eight Part List

by flora_tyronelle



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Also Romance, Angst, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Horseback Riding, Pentathlon, probably fluff at some point
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-17 16:17:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5877373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flora_tyronelle/pseuds/flora_tyronelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke needs space after two years at college that can only be described as awful. England seems to match her definition of 'space'. <br/>Lexa, on the other hand, can't afford to be distracted from training... But Clarke somehow gets under her skin.</p><p>GLACIAL build.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Settling

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to set this fic in England because I'm English and I can't wrap my mind around the American system. Sorry for my weakness. Obviously, both Clarke's college in America and the university hosting her year abroad are entirely fictional, any resemblance is purely coincidental etc. Also, I'm really sorry for any inconsistencies/errors regarding the specific degrees characters are undertaking! I'm an engineer, I can only really empathise with Raven. Bellamy and Octavia are in the same year because Bellamy took a year or two out before starting college (or I shamelessly manipulate plotlines so that they work to my advantage)  
> I haven't added any warnings because I actually have no idea where this fic is going, I'm just really enjoying writing it. I hope you do too! This is actually my first published fic so any feedback would be really wonderful.

                Clarke breathes in slowly, counting to five in her head. She wonders idly if five has good chi or whatever, or if it’s actually full of disruptive energy. She decides she doesn’t care: five has been her favourite number since second grade.

 

“If your mind starts to wander…”

 

Clarke is familiar with the dramatic pause and entertains no self-doubt over her analysis of the number five.

 

“… That’s OK.”

 

Darn right it is, Clarke confirms in her head.

 

“Just gently direct your attention back to your breath.”

 

Clarke obeys, feeling the air glide through the nostrils and down her windpipe. In, two, three, four, five. Out, two, three, four, five.

 

“Now, I’d like you to direct your attention back to your body. To the weight of your body in the chair, or on the floor. Feel your body pressing down against the surface. Feel the sensations of your body.”

 

A short pause.

 

“And now offer yourself some appreciation for doing this practice today- whatever that means to you.”

 

Gratitude to Clarke is a soft warmth in her abdomen. She allows it to pulse as the high ting! Of the mini cymbal thingy rings out to signal the end of her meditation; and then she shoves it to one side like the D graded papers she brought home as a teenager, grabbing her bag off the floor. Gratitude and other warm and squishies will have to wait. She’s going to be late for class.

 

 

                A year abroad had sounded freaking fantastic in theory: new experiences, new friends, broaden her horizons and all that shizzle. (And get away from Finn. But she wasn’t allowed to think about that.) And England! Quaint, cute, snuggly little England where they spoke the same language and drank hot tea and apologised for things that weren’t their fault, like the weather. They drove on the wrong side of the road, but Clarke didn’t care! It wasn’t like she was going to be driving anywhere: everything was close enough to walk.

Yeah, right.

Morton Halls had also sounded fantastic in theory, but Clarke had severely underestimated the half mile walk from there to her lectures every day. OK, she likes the flowers growing in the courtyard outside. She likes her little box room (a private room, everyone has private rooms here?) and how she can hear the parties moving past on the sidewalk outside late at night. She likes her flatmates.

 

But how can it be this far and this uphill to struggle to the Arts building every day? Well, almost every day. Her timetable isn’t _that_ full. Nevertheless, at 10am on a Tuesday she has PSP, or ‘Power, Society and Politics: Religious Art in Northern Europe’ in the main faculty building, half a mile down the road from her bed. Clarke calls it the Prayer ‘N Paint module. History of Art isn’t exactly what she wants to be studying, but it was a reasonable compromise after the crash and burn of her first year in med school. And it’s led her here, which is… Well, it’s different.

 

                Clarke makes it into the lecture theatre with two minutes to spare, and darts a proud glance at the clock as she takes her seat. Number Five is still unbroken, and her hand drifts almost unconsciously to the inner pocket of her satchel. Clarke Griffin has a list that she carries around with her everywhere. She read in a psychology book once that writing things down was powerful, so she wrote down the Eight Things she needed to do to once again have a life that almost glowed with happiness; or, failing that, was at least vaguely cheerful. Her list ran like this:

 

  1. ****Forget Finn****
  2. ****Swear less****
  3. ****Drink less****
  4. ****Meditate more****
  5. ****Be on time****
  6. ****Exercise more****
  7. ****Make new friends****
  8. ****Fall in love again****



 

 

The first was scrawled so hard into the paper that it had made a dent where the words ran. The last was wavering, uncertain. Clarke was aware that it wasn’t exactly a novel list- she was sure everyone made resolutions like this at least once in their life. Hers were different because she was going to keep them.

 

                Two dreary hours later and Clarke was starving. She had managed to keep on top of the material they’d covered, and her printed hand out was covered in margin scribbles, but the cost of her intense concentration was a growling craving for fries. Chips, she reminded herself. The first time she’d asked for fries in the ASU she’d had to field about five questions regarding her accent and why she was in England, and she really wasn’t in the mood today. She pulled her phone out of her bag and dropped a message into the ‘Expats chat’ Octavia had set up that first day after their truly dreadful Meet and Greet in a chilly conference room somewhere in the attics of the ASU.

 

Clarke: Anyone in the ASU for lunch?

Jasper: ASU? *confused emoji*

Monty: The Ark Students’ Union

Clarke: I swear we’ve told you this about twenty times already Jasper

Jasper: Grumpy Clarke *winking emoji**scared emoji*

Clarke: *rolling eyes emoji*

Clarke: Clarke will be more human after fries

Bellamy: Wait, did someone mention fries?

Jasper: FRIES

Jasper: I’m in

Clarke: NOBODY is having ANY of my fries

Monty: To be fair, Clarke is always having to defend her food from us

Bellamy: The price of our friendship

Jasper: Our FRIESndship

Clarke: No, Jasper

Bellamy: Jasper, you killed it

Octavia: Ugh, guys, shut up! I’m in the middle of a lecture here!

Jasper: Wait, you still have a lecture? But it’s lunchtime *shocked emoji*

Octavia: EXACTLY. So stop talking about food pls

Clarke: What time are you free O?

Octavia: 12:30 but the prof usually goes over

Clarke: K, see you in ASU?

Octavia: sure

Jasper: ASU???

Clarke: JASPER

 

                Clarke waits in line for her chips, thinking fondly about the weirdos she’s left sitting in a booth behind her. Although they all only met properly for the first time six weeks ago (apart from her and the Blakes- but that’s another story) they get on surprisingly well: Bellamy, the history geek who’s unfortunately good-looking and happens to be Octavia’s brother. Monty, self-professed nerd studying computer science, who’s the only one who actually raises the tone of their conversations. Jasper- well, Jasper is a law unto himself, but for all his irritating qualities he makes Clarke laugh and he’s deceptively smart when he wants to show it. And, of course, Octavia.

 

They make up a nice little fivesome, occupying sofas in the Lounge, hogging computers in the Control Room or tables in the ASU’s canteen, like now. Apparently there were supposed to be six of them taking a year at Ark University, England, but there’s been no sign of the other traveller and Clarke assumes they won’t show now it’s four weeks into the semester. Clarke finally gains the front of the line, her stomach rumbling at the smell wafting from the fryers lining the back wall, and pays for her long-desired prize. The sight of the china bowl filled with a mountain of hot thick-cut yellow oblongs practically makes her drool, and she carries it like a precious relic back across the canteen.

 

“Food!” Jasper crows as she draws near, that magical sixth-sense alerting him to a meal that he hasn’t paid for.

 

“No, Jasper.” Clarke says, in her firmest voice, setting the tray down with utmost care and taking her seat. “These are the fries that I have been dreaming about for two solid hours, and they are mine and mine alone.”

 

“Didn’t your mom teach you to share?” Bellamy asks her casually from the other end of the table, quirking his eyebrows, but Clarke sees the exact moment when he realises the landmine he’s inadvertently stepped on. Of course he knows: he’s been living with Octavia for as long as Octavia has known Clarke, he has to know about Clarke and Abby. There’s a tiny pause whilst Clarke inwardly cringes against the assault of memories that pour out of a box labelled in permanent marker ‘FORGET’. Monty comes to the rescue.

 

“Jasper, you literally ate a whole sandwich just before we came down here.”

 

Clarke sucks in a breath. This is why she loves Monty. He can sense conflict and tension just as well as his best friend can sense free food and divert the conversation before she can cave in on herself.

 

Jasper turns his kicked puppy eyes on Monty, and Clarke seizes the opportunity before anyone else can. The fry is off the plate and into her mouth before anyone can jump in, and it tastes so good that it almost distracts her from the moment of awkwardness that’s just passed.

 

“Ha!” She says through a mouthful of steaming potato. Whatever. Her list doesn’t say anything about improving her table manners. “First to claim a fry gets the rest of the plate. It’s like, Food Code.”

 

Jasper groans as Monty gives her an approving look. Bellamy also sighs disgruntledly, but Clarke knows him well enough to see the concern still showing in his eyes.

 

“That’s so unfair!” Jasper complains as Clarke finishes her first fry and moves onto her second.

 

“I’ll tell you what’s unfair, children.” A ringing voice cuts across their conversation as Octavia flounces over, flinging her rucksack down in disgust. “A ‘surprise assignment’ in for next Friday. I literally want to die.”

 

“You were the one who wanted to graduate before you were twenty-one.” Bellamy reminds her. Octavia just rolls her eyes at her brother and lets out a sigh of disgust. “Shove up, Jasper.” She barks at him, before flinging herself into a seat and snagging a fry from Clarke’s plate. There is a collective intake of breath.

 

“What?” Octavia asks, munching.

 

Clarke just shrugs at the rest of them. “What can I say. Best friends have certain privileges.”

 

Jasper looks betrayed.


	2. Companionship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just building into things slowly here guys. I promise I will edit the tags when I have a clue where the plot's going!

Tuesday afternoons are empty, so after Clarke and Octavia have demolished the bowl of fries and they’ve all bitched about their respective workloads, Clarke shrugs her bag back over her shoulder and heads back to Morton. She takes one step outside the ASU, squints up at the sky and growls under her breath: the pregnant grey clouds have begun to spit, in a way that she knows is precursor to a downpour. She could scuttle back into the ASU and wait it out, but the tempting thought of her duvet, Netflix and the chocolate she has stashed in her desk drawers is too much to resist. The Old Clarke, pre-list Clarke, pre-college Clarke would have howled with laughter at that idea of a good time, but she’s changed. Some days there’s nothing better than curling up and shutting out the world.

She powerwalks down the front steps, her head down and dodging the constant flow of students swarming over the… pavements, that’s what they call them here. She laughs at herself in her head, she’s practically Ariel. What’s the word…? Humming the piano melody to Part of Your World helps distract her from the wind whipping her cardigan in crazy shapes around her waist, but in seconds the rain she predicted begins to come down in earnest and she curses under her breath. Well, as much as Number Two permits, which results in something like: “Frigging, freaking fraggle.”

She’ll be damned if she turns back now though, so she pushes on down the road. As she walks, she thinks of home. Not their house, or school, or family: those all infringe, like the edges of a Venn diagram, on banned thinking topics. Maybe it’s not healthy to censor her own thoughts like this- who is she kidding? She knows it’s not healthy- but it’s the only way Clarke Griffin has managed to claw herself back together after the past five years, so she’s sticking with it.

Instead, she thinks about the weather, what it would be doing right now in Mecha. It would be cold, colder than here, but probably still raining she has to admit. Apparently it almost never snows here, both according to Wikipedia and anecdotal evidence Clarke has heard from kids in her classes reacting to her background picture on her phone. She pulls it out of her pocket now and switches on the screen. There are seven messages hanging from the Expats chat, but Clarke decides they can wait. Instead, she looks at the picture only slightly obscured by the icon and smiles a little, despite of herself.

It’s her and Octavia, taken three winters ago. Bellamy had taken the shot, fingers fumbling slightly in the cold, so it’s slightly blurred and out of focus like Clarke’s put a hipster filter across it. The two girls are central in the frame, too close to the camera to fit in anything below their torsos. Clarke knows that she’s pretty- not in a conceited way, like *cough* Bellamy- just as a simple fact that’s neither good or bad, but in this photo she can see how she might be considered beautiful, with a happy glow in her eyes and her cheeks rosy, her arm wrapped around Octavia’s middle. Octavia is hugging her back, their brown and blonde hair mixing together on the front of their coats as the blizzard flurries around them. It’s quite a feat to get Octavia smiling normally in a photograph: usually, she’s pulling a ridiculous face like all her snapchats, or when Bellamy’s behind the camera it’s a cheerful middle finger. Clarke can’t help smiling again. She’s so, so glad she doesn’t have to do this alone.

  
**Six months earlier**

“I’ve done it.”

Clarke says it without preamble, trying very hard not to let her voice shake. She has to be brave, she has to show Octavia that she’s OK, that she’s ready to face her future and moving forward and making plans after three months of no, I’m fine, leave me be. Octavia has been her best, truest friend since she can remember: they went to school together, to parties together, to college together, and since Clarke’s dad died she’s barely let Clarke out of her sight. But now… Clarke’s done something drastic. And she’s so, so, frightened, more frightened that she’ll admit of what Octavia will say and think. So, like any rational person, Clarke gives the matter exactly three seconds of consideration after knocking on her best friend’s door before jumping in head first.

“Done what?” Octavia hums, barely glancing up from her laptop. She and Clarke are in and out of each other’s rooms all the time, their roommates have practically moved in with each other just to avoid third-wheeling the pair.

Clarke swallows. Now or never.

“My forms are in.” She twists her hands together in nervous shapes. A memory of chewing on her hair whenever she was in trouble surfaces unexpectedly- Clarke had forgotten that particular habit. She is tempted to revisit it right now.

“Forms?” Octavia asks, and there’s something a little off with her tone, something slightly brittle. Clarke’s gut twists. She nods once, a sharp motion, and Octavia twists in her seat. Turning away from her. Oh God. O only does that when she’s really mad. Somehow she’s found out, or she’s found out that Clarke’s been keeping things from her, and Clarke feels really sick now. Moving on from the worst time in her life was not supposed to include losing her best friend at the same time.

Octavia keeps her voice carefully measured as she stands up (disgustingly gracefully, a product of high school cheerleading) and keeps her back to Clarke.

“You mean the Year Abroad forms? Those were in today, right?”

“Um.” Clarke swallows, hard. “Yeah.” In the abstract, she can’t help but marvel at Octavia’s capacity for remembering dates for things that don’t even apply to her.

“Oh. Well, good.” Octavia finally turns back to face her just as Clarke’s entire self-esteem starts to crumble, and… Is that a smile?

“Me too.” Octavia continues, the smile growing wider into that shit-eating grin Clarke is so familiar with. Clarke is clearly still looking blank, so Octavia widens her eyes in the expression that says Keep up, dumbass. “Ark Uni, right? England? I submitted my application too.”

“You… Submitted…” Clarke is definitely not processing.

“Yeah. Bell decided he wanted to travel but couldn’t be arsed to learn a language beyond ninth-grade level, and I can’t let him go by himself. Plus,” Octavia smirks, “Harper was very helpful. You really shouldn’t list your secret plans and leave them on your desk.”

Clarke gapes. “My…”

“Yep.”

Clarke feels like a bomb has gone off in her brain, one filled with fireworks that would put Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes to shame. She shrieks.

“Oh my GOD! You absolute shithead Octavia!” At the instant Octavia sees she’s grasped what’s going on, she flings herself across the room and they hug each other so hard that Clarke for one can’t breathe. Screw breathing. “I can’t believe you got my own fucking roommate to spy for you! You are the absolute…”

“Best? Most perfect? Most wonderful?” Clarke pulls back to glare into her friend’s innocent face before letting out an incoherent noise of frustration and stress and sheer love. And then, finally, the reality of the situation dawns on her.

“We’re going to England!” She yells, because she’s not going to have to do this alone, she’s going to have her favourite person by her side. And Bellamy too, which could be worse. They scream together like the teenage girls they are, and they hug again.

By the time Octavia’s roommate comes back, they’ve been dancing around to girl power songs for two hours solid, laughing until they cry at each other’s ridiculous dance moves, Clarke has called Octavia every name under the sun and told her she loves her at least twenty-three times (Octavia keeps count) and neither of them have the strength to move any more. Clarke realises that this is the first time she’s felt out of her head since… Well, since Finn.

They lie on their backs on Octavia’s tiny bed, heads dangling over the side so their hair pools side by side on the carpet. They make plans as the late spring evening draws in, and Clarke feels hopeful for the first time in months.

 

Clarke thinks of that night often now that they’re actually here. They’d both had such different expectations for England: Octavia had wanted somewhere to excel, to impress and make an impact. As far as Clarke can tell, she’s succeeding. But that’s like Octavia, to grab her world with both hands and shake it like a Polaroid until it paints an image she’s happy with. Clarke’s always loved that about her, her drive, her ambition, her determination. Neither of the Blakes have had it easy, but Octavia’s living proof that hard work makes change. So is Bellamy, to be fair. He’s only in the same year as Octavia because he worked to pay for both of them to have a college education. The two of them are the closest thing to siblings Clarke has, and somehow they’re still together across the Atlantic Ocean.

But Clarke had wanted very different things from England than Octavia. She wanted somewhere… Somewhere she could be an unknown quantity. Not necessarily to be noticed, but a place where she wasn’t Popular Clarke, Clarke Who Was Whispered About, That Clarke, Clarke With Finn, Clarke Who... She shakes her head to clear the thoughts. Number One, remember?

And England has been a fresh start. She’s met some new people, nice people, she’s been out to the club in the basement of the ASU and to the scene in town, she’s been to flat parties and house parties, she’s joined a few societies. But somehow things aren’t as good as she imagined they’d be. She’s not sure why. Maybe she can’t be sure without breaking Number One, and if that’s the case then Clark would rather stick to the list.

Amazingly, she’s been so lost in thought that her feet have carried her all the way to the entrance to Morton, although it helps that it’s downhill all the way. Clarke thinks back to Number Six, the one she’s done least work towards. Sure, the walk is an effort, but it’s hardly severe cardio. She’s going to have to find something to do, fast (although she has refused Octavia’s offer of kickboxing. Somehow, she doesn’t think Octavia would be averse to sparring bouts, and her friend is already dangerous enough unskilled). She fumbles for her keys, letting herself into the corridor. Morton are old-style halls, complete with wood panelling that jars with the grimy doors of the elevator. To Clarke’s credit, she’s only taken the elevator twice, and that was when she was so drunk she was sure gravity was holding her on the lino on purpose. Now, she doesn’t have that excuse: she squares her shoulders and bounds up the stairs, two at a time, up to the third floor. That’s definitely cardio.

Her flat seems to be deserted- the hall light comes on as she pushes the door open. Clarke gets on fine with her four flatmates, Katy, Mo, Adam and Kieran, but she only sees them once a day at most, and that’s usually in the morning. Clarke is not good with mornings. They’re lucky if they get a scratchy greeting from her over the fumes rising from her coffee mug.

She makes a quick plan as she shoulders through her door and drops her bag on her duvet. An hour of note-making. Cook dinner, which would be fine and she wouldn’t burn anything. Then she could switch off for the day and get into bed, fall asleep by twelve and be ready for her 11am tutorial tomorrow. Easy.

It’s anything but easy. She practically nods off over her notes, even though she knows that her January exams are drawing closer and this could make a crucial difference to her grade. Yeah, right. Who was she kidding. She wasn’t learning anything, except that her handwriting has gotten even worse than it was last year. She considers sending a picture of a sentence to Octavia to see if she can decipher it, because she can’t actually make out what she’s written, but on balance the ridicule that will accompany the translation probably isn’t worth it. Clarke gives up. Time for her next challenge.

Clarke enters the kitchen cautiously, not out of fear of meeting one of her flatmates- in fact, she’d welcome the conversation, and it would serve as a distraction from the one subject that had become her nemesis ever since moving in. Clarke eyes the oven like it’s a large snake that might be poisonous and has lunged at her before.

“Ok, buster.” She announces to the empty room. “I know that you and I haven’t exactly got on in the past, but we’ve got to put that all behind us.” Unsurprisingly, the oven doesn’t reply. Clarke nods anyway. “Good.” If she were wearing oven gloves, she would clap them together impressively, but she isn’t. In fact, the only culinary equipment Clarke owns is one saucepan and one baking tray (the omission of oven gloves was a particularly bad error: Clarke’s building up a veritable constellation of scars on her forearms). After all, college had a canteen. On the other hand, all of the halls at Ark University are self-catered. Clarke had never even used a tin opener before moving here. Actually, she still hasn’t. Pasta doesn’t require a tin opener, and the one time she’d attempted anything more adventurous she’d set off the fire alarm and driven the whole block outside into the pouring rain. It was an experience of shame seared into her brain and one that she would avoid repeating at all costs, even if that meant existing off spaghetti for the next eight months.

Ten fraught minutes later, Clarke, the hob and a lot of the tiled wall are covered in splashes of tomato sauce, but she has a vat of steaming pasta loaded into a bowl. She has sustained only one minor burn to her wrist and hasn’t broken or bent any of her utensils. She’ll take that as a success. She retreats to her room with a slight feeling of triumph to consume her meal in solitude. By the time she’s done it’s nearly ten at night, so she clicks off her light and lies on top of her covers, idly watching a series she missed the start of and can’t be bothered to go back over. When her clock ticks over to midnight, she switches off her computer and drags on her pyjamas (emblazoned with the logo ‘Wingardium Leviloser’ on both front and back) and climbs into bed. She’s done another day. Her list is going strong. But despite these comforting thoughts, it still takes her a long time to drift to sleep.


	3. Message

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rejoice, for I have a plot! And as you can see each chapter is getting longer and longer, so there might actually be something decent to read in a few.  
> WARNING: If reading you dislike reading about periods then skip the first few chapters. There's nothing explicit, it's just referenced because poor Clarke is about to have a terrible morning.

                Wednesday morning is a complete trainwreck, and Clarke supposes she should have known everything was too good to last.

                It starts with the impatient buzz of an alarm, somewhere in the periphery of her vision. Clarke has made about five mental notes over the past six weeks to change the tone to something slightly more soothing than ‘Angry Hornet Trapped in Belljar’, but since she always makes the note first thing in the morning her brain isn’t sharp enough to retain it for anything longer than three seconds. She doesn’t bother to crack open an eye. As usual, the thought drifts away into the sleepy fog, and she lies there in a stupor for several long minutes. Until-

 _Shi_ \- She means, _Shizzle._

Something feels slick between her legs.

 _Oh crap_. That’s not technically swearing, is it? Clarke flings herself out of bed regardless and hurtles into her tiny en suite (well, she hurtles into the door of her closet first, _ow_ ). The face that greets her in the mirror is pale, frazzled and sporting an impressive collection of zits on the chin, and Clarke groans in frustration. All the signs were there, she supposes, but she just hadn’t been paying attention. She sits down on the toilet and inspects the damage, sending a quick prayer of thanks to whoever’s watching that she went to bed still wearing her underwear last night. Her panties are ruined, but oh well. They’re only boring black lace, and Clarke has plenty of others (provided she remembers to do her laundry, which is debatable); most importantly, her Harry Potter pyjama pants are still clean. She returns to her room and begins to dig through her drawers.

                Clarke hasn’t taken the pill for almost two years, but her period still has the power to surprise her on occasion (although that could just be a reflection on the haphazard way she currently organises her life, rather than any physiological issues). Her cycles seem more powerful than she remembers from before, more painful and long-lasting, but she knows that crawling back under the duvet is the worst thing to do. She has to get dressed, get some breakfast inside her and knock back painkillers before she ends up sweaty and writhing, and not in a good way. And she has a tutorial to go to. She indulges in one more heartfelt groan of annoyance, then starts getting dressed. She eyes her favourite pair of skinny jeans- dark blue wash, with subtle crystal embellishment around the beltloops and pockets- but passes them over in favour of loose black leggings and a relaxed fit grey t-shirt. It’s so old that Clarke’s had to sew up the various seams at least four times each, but she loves it because it has one of her designs on the front. Maybe it’s egotistical, but Clarke is- was, so rarely happy with the art she produced: it made her want to cherish this piece even more. Octavia had got it printed for her as a seventeenth birthday present, and Clarke unconsciously traces over the lines with her fingertip. It’s a drawing, done in pencil, of a tree in the middle of a great forest. Woven into the leaves, into the bark, into the sky above and the twisting branches all around are hints of the life she had back in Mecha- the life she had then been leaving for college. She had drawn it as she emerged from grieving over her father, and that makes it all the more precious to her. Still in a slight haze of reverie, she drifts down the corridor to the kitchen.

                Two slices of toast and a painkiller later, her brain has begun to sharpen up, but Clarke can’t make it through the day without a jolt of black magic to clear away the last dregs of sleep. As she waits for the kettle to boil she idly pulls her phone from the pocket of the cardigan she threw on top of her t-shirt, thinking to check Facebook and message Octavia: but something distracts her. She has a voicemail? Nobody calls her, at least not at night. Everyone who knows her knows that waking Clarke once she’s asleep is basically equivalent to waking a marble statue. She shrugs, and hits the button with her thumb to listen. She realises her mistake in exactly four seconds.

“Clarke, it’s me. I know you’re still mad at me, and I understand why, I really do.” Clarke chokes on air, hot rage rushing up her gullet like bile. She wants to drop the phone there and then, terminate the hesitant, pleading syllables of her mother’s voice as they drift through the speaker and swirl around in her ears like clouds of gas. But she’s frozen, her hand gripping on the case too tight, the other seized on the edge of the countertop, her heart thundering in her ears. Her mother doesn’t stop.

“I just want to make things right between us. You’ll always be my daughter, Clarke. I want to fix this, but I can’t do that if you won’t talk to me. Please, just pick up the phone and call me. Please Clarke.” There’s a noise that sounds suspiciously like a sob, and then the message ends.

                Clarke is shaking all over. How could she do that? How could she do that to her?

_I want to make things right… I understand why… Please, Clarke, please, Clarke, please, Clarke._

                Clarke doesn’t realise she’s dropped the phone until the clatter of it on the floor penetrates the ringing in her skull. She raises both hands to her temples and presses, hard, sucking in air through her nose.

_Clarke, it’s me… You’ll always be my daughter…_

“Shut _up_.” Clarke whispers furiously to herself.

 _If you’d really wanted to talk to me, you’d wouldn’t have called in the middle of the night. And what definition of ‘making things right’ doesn’t involve apologising for what she’d done?_ She could beg and plead all she liked but Clarke wasn’t budging until she heard the two words her mother would never utter.

_She’ll say that she understands, that she gets it, that she sees why I thought I had to do what I did, but will she ever say “Sorry, Clarke”? “Clarke, I was wrong”? No. Abby Griffin is never wrong._

It’s often said that the Griffin women have a quick temper on them, and Clarke knows it’s true. But she’s even better at that than her mother. Nobody can bear a grudge like Clarke Griffin.

                She wants to be able to shrug it off, to pick up her phone and go on with her day like it doesn’t matter. That’s what people normally did when they were estranged, didn’t they? If your anger burns hot enough, it shouldn’t matter how many times someone knocks on the door: you shut them out, permanently. Clarke knows this. So why is it so hard?

                Every single time her mother has called her (seven times since coming to England- a little over once a week. Not that Clarke’s been counting), Clarke’s ended up back here. Small and raging and trapped, hands curled into fists, thinking that she’d thought the last time would be the _last_ time, but it never was.

“Get a grip, Clarke.” She mutters to herself. “You chose to do this. Now you have to deal with the consequences.”

She remembers Abby saying that to her. She remembers her dad nodding in the background until he spotted her worried eleven year old face.

_“But remember, we’ll always love you sweetheart. No matter what choices you make.”_

Clarke had so badly wanted to believe that.

Huh. Even at eleven she could tell bullcrap when she saw it.

Suddenly, there are tears jabbing at the corners of her eyes, blurring her vision slightly. She shakes her head violently, trying to clear them, then realises that the kettle boiled a long time ago. As much as Clarke’s own vortex of family crap would love to consume her every waking hour, she can’t let it. Her tutorial is still waiting for her, and she has- just under ten minutes to get there. Clarke goes into lockdown, swallowing the sobs that ache to break free, digging little crescents into the palms of her hands as she forces all of the hurt and hate and sorrow back down, back into the cage where she keeps it shut in at the back of her mind. She, the lion-tamer, brandishing a wooden stool and a whip. The lions roar in frustration, but Clarke is already moving. She scoops up her phone, runs back to her room and internally slams the covers on the cage shut.

Clarke only thinks about who’s stronger, the lion tamer or the lions, in the dead of night, at three AM when she can’t sleep. That’s the only time she allows herself to cry, and she tells herself it’s because she’s overtired and things will be fine in the morning. Maybe they will. Clarke’s always been persuasive. Now, she’s just got to convince herself.

 

As she runs up the road, bag bumping on her shoulder, she hits speed dial and presses the phone to her ear.

“What.”

“What a nice way to greet your best friend.” Clarke pants, dodging a bicycle that swerves between two knots of students.

“I’m literally in the middle of writing a paper, Clarke. This had better be important.” Clarke feels a little guilty- Octavia does sound mildly stressed, and Wednesday mornings are one of the longest stretches she has free. But, then again, she had made Clarke swear she’d call her whenever this happened.

“… My mom called.”

“Shit.” Octavia’s attention snaps onto her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not right now.” Clarke’s nigh on gasping for air now, and she’s only halfway up the hill. “Can you be free for lunch? At the ASU?” She pauses for a few seconds. “I’m not even sure if I do want to talk about it,” she confesses, “but-“

“Gotcha.” Octavia cuts her off. “I’ll see you there at 12:30?”

“Bless you for memorising my timetable.” Clarke jokes.

“Like you haven’t memorised mine.”

“Fair. Love you! Bye!”

Octavia barely has time to reciprocate before Clarke hangs up and concentrates all her energy into scaling the sidewalk.

By some miracle, Number Five clings to existence by a fraction of a second as Clarke skids around the door into her tutorial.

“Just in time, Clarke.”

Professor Ray gives her a slight smile as Clarke takes a seat, her face hot with exertion. Clarke is thankful she has Professor Ray, who is not a lecturer who considers reading off PowerPoint slides to be a sufficient aid to learning, and she tries to show her gratitude by listening carefully and making as many notes as the cramp in her hand will allow. Plus she actually enjoys learning about Byzantine art. The hour and a half manages to skim by, with only minimal interruptions from Clarke’s thoughts regarding Abby. Clarke distracts herself every time.

As she crosses the road to the ASU Clarke is still debating what to tell Octavia. She’s never told O, never told anyone how much she struggles with emotionally separating herself from her mother. Sure, they had an odd relationship as Clarke grew up- a surgeon’s hours don’t exactly fit around school or extracurriculars- but Clarke remembers being proud whenever her mom found time to drive her to a birthday party or drop her at a friend’s house. She was so certain her mom was important back then, so sure of how wonderful and clever and brave she was.

_“My dad fixes machines, which is pretty cool.” Fourth-grade, with a tooth missing, presenting to the class. “But my mom fixes people, which is even cooler. She saves people’s lives.”_

But she wasn’t nine anymore. She saw right through the façade to the crumbling, hypocritical ruins within. Clarke wonders sometimes if she ruined her mother, or if her father’s death did that, or if she was always in pieces, it was just that Jake glued her together enough to keep up the pretence. It shouldn’t matter to her, but the thought still niggles ( _because if she made Abby like this in the first place…_ )

 _Don’t go there, Griffin_. Clarke tells herself sternly, bounding up the stairs into the ASU two at a time. She checks her watch. She’s a little late for Octavia, but hopefully that means O will have found them somewhere to sit, and she pushes through the crowd of people entering the canteen with purpose.

“Clarke!”

She was right- Octavia has staked her claim on a two-person booth at the very back of the canteen and waves madly to attract her attention. Hers, and everyone else’s within a hundred metre radius, because Octavia’s voice is _loud_.

“Hey O.” Clarke makes her way over. “Any dead people joining us? Because, you know, I think you just woke them up.”

“Whatever. What do you want? I’m buying.”

“No, you’re not. I’m buying.” This is a little ritual they have, and it comforts Clarke to slip back into their familiar routine.

“Fine.” Octavia rolls her eyes expressively. “If you wanted me to be your kept woman, you only had to ask.” That actually startles a laugh from Clarke, only because it’s such an _Octavia_ thing to say.

“Actually, you’re not really my type.” Clarke wrinkles her nose in mock-disgust and Octavia flounces away- but not before grabbing Clarke’s wallet from her hands. “Chicken Caesar wrap, yeah?” She tosses over her shoulder, and Clarke nods.

Another thing that Clarke appreciates about having Octavia around is that she doesn’t have to explain about the wallet. Or, more accurately, make up an excuse about the wallet because pretty blonde girls don’t normally carry a man’s wallet, battered and scuffed into the bargain. Octavia had seen it in Jake’s hand enough times when they were out together as kids: buying ice-creams that ran down their chins as they ate them on the swings. Clarke has seen Octavia cry when she dropped her cone of two scoops of strawberry by the monkey-bars in the park, and her dad came over and fixed it with a double-layer strawberry and chocolate cone because that’s what he did. Clarke realised in the sterile smell of a hospital room that whilst her mother might understand arteries and blood and tissue and bone, her dad was the one who could fix hearts- the ones that weren’t the lumps of muscle they studied in biology, the ones they used to draw on their folders in a rain of perfect symmetrical shapes. But he couldn’t fix hers the first time, because it was thanks to him that it broke. And then he wasn’t around for the second time.

Whilst Octavia buys the food, Clarke relaxes into the padded surface of the seat like she wants it to swallow her. Speaking of which, when Octavia gets back she needs to go and attend to her womanly business: Clarke is irrationally proud that she remembered to stuff a handful of tampons into her bag before she shot out the door this morning. She’s forgotten once before, and there aren’t any dispensers in the bathrooms here (like, what the hell?). Octavia wends her way back over, her hands filled with food which she spills with some attempt at care onto their table.

“OK, now you’re back I’m just going to run to the bathroom.” Clarke tells her, picking up her bag again and moving to stand up.

“OK, but, for real, why do they make coins this weird shape?” Octavia scrutinises the handful of change in her palm, pulling out a fifty pence. “It’s a freaking hexagon- no, heptagon!”

Clarke laughs. “You’re such a muggle, O.”

“Actually, I think you’ll find it was the other way around in the books. The Dursleys sent Harry a fifty pence piece for Christmas and he gave it to Ron because it’s so weird.”

Clarke knows better than to argue with Octavia over Harry Potter trivia (it’s freaky how well she remembers _every single detail_ of those books) so she just agrees and makes her exit. There are nice bathrooms down the corridor so she heads for those: the ones upstairs are a lot more grotty, but Clarke guesses these are what the general public use when they come to gigs and events in Arkadia and are therefore kept in good condition. The chatter filtering in from the canteen and Main Hall dies down as the door swings shut so she can hear the songs played by student radio, piped in via speakers. The DJ switches on a song Clarke recognises: VV Brown, she likes her music. She goes in to a stall humming quietly and takes care of business swiftly. She heads out, and is washing her hands when movement in the corner of her eye catches her attention. Another girl has come out of a stall at the far end. She walks slightly awkwardly, which could be what made Clarke look up. But then Clarke sees her face and her mind blanks. Their eyes meet in the mirror before Clarke can pretend she hasn’t seen.

_Raven._

Her face floods with colour. The other girl- slim, dusky-skinned with big pouty lips and ebony hair- only looks back at her with a kind of resigned finality.

_Raven?_

**Baby, there’s a shark in the water…**

_How are you here?_ Clarke screams in her head. But neither of them says anything. Neither moves a muscle.

**I caught them barking at the moon…**

Something breaks inside Clarke. The Old Clarke, the Clarke who never knew Raven existed, would have stood her ground, asked her questions, driven them into conflict before she knew what she was doing- but, as she keeps saying, Old Clarke is gone.

With a kind of strangled gasp, she spins on her heels and bolts out of the door. She doesn’t see the other girl standing stock still, watching her leave.

She nearly runs into Octavia, who’s not happy.

“Did you find the fucking chamber of secrets, Clarke? How long does it take someone to go to the bathroom?”

Clarke hadn’t realised she’d been staring at Raven for so long. Then again, Octavia is one of the most impatient people she knows.

_Raven. What the hell was she doing here?_

“Earth to Clarke?” Octavia snaps her fingers together in front of her face, and Clarke starts. She has to tell Octavia, and then they have to get away from this bathroom, fast. She does not, really does not want to see Raven again. Ever.

“Octavia. I just met Raven. Raven Reyes. In the bathroom.”

Octavia’s eyes go very wide.

“No fucking way.”

“Yes fridging way.”

“She must be the other transfer student.”

Of course, it made perfect sense, but Clarke hadn’t even guessed. Their college had been big enough for her not to know half of the people who went there at all- what were the chances?

“What did you do when you saw each other?” Octavia asks, agog.

“Just stared at each other, and then I ran away out of the bathroom and she’s probably going to come out in less than a second and I really, _really_ do not want to see her again.” Clarke is making frantic motions back up the corridor, begging Octavia to follow her.

“OK.” O takes charge. “You go back to our table. I’ll go and get your bag from the bathroom, she doesn’t know who I am.”

Clarke had totally forgotten about her bag.

“Go!” Octavia makes a little shooing motion with her head and Clarke is only too happy to obey. She darts back up the corridor like she’s being chased by a tiger, dives into the dining hall and doesn’t look up until she’s safely ensconced in their booth.

_Raven Reyes. What were the chances?_

Raven and Clarke had met on exactly one occasion, and Clarke seems to remember the other girl promising to rip out her eyeballs and use her optic nerve as a drinking straw. OK, that had been over a year ago now, and there had been no ripping to speak of two minutes ago, but she had literally never expected to lay eyes on Raven Reyes again. And that suited her fine.

Apparently, the universe did not agree.

Octavia returns about thirty seconds later, swinging Clarke’s satchel in one hand.

“Did she see where you went?” Clarke asks, still panicking slightly.

“Chill out, Miss Paranoia.” Octavia slumped into her seat. “She’s not following me, or you. Doubt she can move very fast with that brace on her leg anyway.”

“She has a brace?” Raven the Ripper hadn’t had a brace, but that would explain the awkward walking.

“Yep.”

Clarke looks up to find herself being studied intensely by Octavia’s hazel eyes. It is a vaguely uncomfortable sensation, but she doesn’t want to break the silence.

After two long minutes, Octavia finally asks,

“Are you OK?”

Clarke takes a long sigh.

“Yes. No. Kind of. I mean, I think I was more shocked than anything.”

Octavia shrugs. “Understandable.”

Clarke finds it oddly simple to speak her mind. Normally, her thoughts are such a tangled mess that she has no idea what she’s really feeling. She just knew what she _should_ be doing, so she went and did that, from one thing to the next, ignoring anything that might be going on under the surface.

“I don’t hate Raven.” She says, haltingly. “I was insanely jealous of her when I first found out, and of course she hated me because I was, you know, the other woman.” Octavia nods. “But I don’t hate her. What Finn did wasn’t her fault.” It feels weird to speak Finn’s name aloud without any kind of vehemence or rage behind it. Her voice wobbled, sure, but it didn’t otherwise betray any kind of feelings towards the man. She takes a deep breath. “She lost as much as I did.”

Octavia’s expression changes into something like respect, or as close too as she’ll ever get.

“Astounded by my magnanimity?” Clarke asks, wryly. To be fair, Octavia has seen her fair share of Clarke yelling, screaming, crying and belting out the lyrics to Taylor Swift off key at 2 am (come to think of it, she can still remember all the words to Should’ve Said No). She can see why her friend is a little surprised.

Octavia snaps out of it. “Something like that. So, are we doing mom counselling as well today or are we just going to eat our food and bitch about imaginary characters?”

Clarke shudders at the idea of contemplating another traumatic episode in her life, and opts for the latter. The hour passes more happily than Clarke would have thought possible, but at the back of her mind another box has just started bulging against the chains that hold it shut.

What is she going to do about Raven?


	4. Fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's about to go down...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it all seems cute and friendly fluff to start with but stick with it. Major stuff is going to go down!

Clarke gets back to her room and tries to drag her scattered thoughts together.

 

 _Jesus. Raven_.

 

What if she sees her again? Ark University isn’t huge, there’s a very real possibility they’ll cross paths in the near future.

_Thanks a lot, universe_ , she thinks, viciously. _Here I am, trying to get the fudge on with my life and you just had to throw yet another piece of crap at me_.

 

Clarke suddenly realises that her shoulders are literally scrunched around her ears with tension, and she forcibly pushes them back down. She has to relax. Chill out. Meditate.

 

 

Oh yeah.

 

 She has time, so she clicks on the five minute breathing meditation and settles down in her desk chair. She’s grown quite fond of the disembodied woman with the cool voice, telling her to relax and empty her mind. Clarke is fairly sure that the only thing that would truly calm her down right now is something chemical, but drinking in the middle of the afternoon would also screw up Number Three, so meditating will have to do.

 

“Focus in on your breathing…”

 

It’s a state of being she’s not used to, just being aware of her body. Actually, being self-aware full stop is pretty alien to her- she’s gotten very good at pushing emotions to the side when they get in the way of her picture perfect imaginings, or just carrying on through whatever storm has hurtled her way this time. What’s that line from the Beatles song?

 

“Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door…”

 

Clarke owns a fair few jars.

 

Her phone buzzes- Facebook message. She ignores it until the meditation ends, then pulls it towards her, lighting up the lock screen. Perhaps this was ruining her mindfulness, diving back into the world of instant messaging instead of gazing out of the window with a thoughtful expression as the trees waved in the wind, but whatever. Clarke only gazes when she was inspired by something, and the view was far from inspirational. Plus she can feel _Raven, Raven, Raven_ fluttering anxiously at the edges of her psyche and a distraction will keep it at bay. ( _It_ being a minor mental breakdown, and Clarke is fairly sure she’s been through enough today).

 

**Expats chat: 59 messages**

 

Clarke groans, but she doesn’t want to be that person who demands a synopsis because they’re too lazy to scroll. She flexes her thumb in preparation and begins flying her way up the screen.

 

Clarke: JASPER

**18:50**

Jasper: Who was the hunky guy outside the ASU Octavia??? *winky emoji**winky emoji**winky emoji*

Bellamy: What ‘hunky guy’?

Octavia: Thanks, Jasper…

Bellamy: What ‘hunky guy’??

 

Wow, Bellamy must have been desperate. Punctuation is sacred to him.

 

Octavia: Chill big bro

 

Of course Octavia had noticed, too.

 

Jasper: Monty wants to know as well, don’t you, Monty *winky emoji*

Monty: I did see him too. But we respect your privacy, Octavia.

Jasper: No we don’t!!!

Bellamy: We do not!

 

Clarke couldn’t help laughing out loud at Bellamy’s efforts to actually mutate into an overprotective caveman, complete with club and exaggerated frown.

 

Octavia: Jeez, guys! Jasper, ur going to break your *winky emoji* button

Bellamy: We’re waiting, Octavia

Jasper: We’ll never give up until we know!!

Monty: Don’t let them break you, Octavia!

Octavia: I agree with u in principle Monty

Octavia: But I wouldn’t put it past those 2 to stalk me or some crazy shit to find out

Octavia: Being stalked by your own bro is not cool

Jasper: And being stalked by me?? *winky emoji*

 

Clarke grimaces. Jasper always had to make it just _too_ weird.

 

Monty: Ugh, Jasper!

Thank you, Monty.

 

Bellamy: Don’t make me add you to my hit list Jasper

Octavia: Even worse Jas

Octavia: And the point of a hit list is that it’s secret bell

Octavia: Like the burn book

Monty: Mean Girls!

Octavia: You go, Glenn Coco!

 

Actually, it doesn’t surprise Clarke that Monty has seen Mean Girls.

 

Bellamy: Don’t try and change the subject

Octavia: Speaking of other relevant great movies, jasper u can’t describe people as hunky guys

Octavia: Unless ur going for hunky dude

Monty: I’m a badass, hunky dude!

 

Or She’s The Man. Clarke _really_ loves Monty.

 

Octavia: Ur my fave Monty

Monty: Glad to be of service *smiley emoji*

Bellamy: Octavia!

Bellamy: Stop encouraging her, Green

Octavia: Be a good bro bell

Octavia: It’s nearly eleven and I have a class at nine

Octavia: Let me sleep

 

Clarke smirks- Octavia is an expert in manipulating her brother when she has to.

 

Bellamy: Fine

Bellamy: But I expect you to tell me tomorrow

Jasper: Tell *USSS tomorrow

Octavia: Night

Monty: Goodnight Octavia!

 

There was then a pause in the flow of messages until 9:43 this morning.

 

Jasper: Has she spilled the beans to anyone???

Monty: The lack of messages would indicate that she hasn’t

Jasper: I meant she might have messaged Bell

Jasper: Or clarkey

Monty: Clarkey?

Jasper: Just roll with it

 

Please do not just roll with it, Clarke thinks. _Clarkey?_

 

Monty: I think I’ll just stick with Clarke

 

Monty Green is still her favourite.

 

Bellamy: No, she has not messaged me. And I happen to know she’s in class until 12:00 so don’t expect to hear anything before then

Jasper: But that’s HOURS away *sobbing emoji*

Bellamy: I expect you’ll live

 

There is a gap again until 12:00.

 

**12:01**

Jasper: OCTAVIA?!?!

Octavia: Jfc jas

Octavia: I’m going to lunch with Clarke and I’m turning my phone off

Jasper: WHATTTTTTT???????

Octavia: Byeeeeee!

Bellamy: Octavia Blake!

Monty: Too late

Jasper: Why are we even friends with her

 

And then the conversation finally ended.

 

Clarke might have laughed at her friends’ desperate attempts to get Octavia to talk, but she’s just as curious. She guesses Octavia will probably have her laptop open and Facebook on a tab, so she swiftly taps out a private message.

 

Clarke: Badass hunky dude?

Clarke: But the real questions are is he badass and is he hunky? *winky emoji*

 

It took barely a minute before Octavia popped up as typing.

 

Octavia: U scrolled the whole way? Wow

Clarke: So make my trouble worth it

Clarke: Badass??

Clarke: Hunky????

Octavia: Yes to both

Octavia: If there was a self-satisfied smirk emoji would totally be using it right now

 

A grin split across Clarke’s face- Octavia deserves to finally get a break in the romance department.

 

Clarke: OMG!!!

Clarke: Name??

Octavia: Lincoln

 

Like the city? Thinks Clarke. Or the president?

 

Octavia: I know

Octavia: He said it was weird

Octavia: But fit as

Octavia: And he helped me when I dropped my IR file

 

Clarke winces, but she’s even more impressed. Octavia’s IR file is a beast, stuffed with loose sheets that she was always meaning to secure but never did.

 

Clarke: And this was outside the ASU?

Octavia: Yep

Octavia: Some of the sheets got blown away but he ran after them for me

Clarke: Now that’s romantic

Octavia: It was except he nearly got run down by a bus

 

Trust Octavia to end up turning a perfectly normal interaction into a life or death scenario- it was a peculiar talent she had. That, or she just attracted trouble.

 

Clarke: Course of true love never did run smooth *winky emoji*

Clarke: Number?

Octavia: No *crying emoji*

Octavia: But he said he was going to a party

Octavia: Saturday night

Octavia: Sort of invited me?

Clarke: Are you gonna go???

 

She already knows the answer.

 

Octavia: YES

Octavia: Not every day u get offers from badass hunky dudes u bump into on the street *winky emoji*

Clarke snorts because this is a lie. Octavia gets hit on wherever they go, much to Bellamy’s despair and Clarke’s amusement (not that any of those… Clarke’s actually finding it hard to describe them without breaking Number Two. Twits will have to do, like the Roald Dahl book. None of those twits were anywhere close to being worthy of her).

 

Clarke: Do you want me to break the news on the group chat?

Octavia: Pls

Octavia: I would but they’ll question u less

Clarke: Consider it done *smiley emoji*

Octavia: Thank u! <3

Clarke: <3

 

Clarke flicks open Expats, types a brief synopsis of this Lincoln and braces herself for the onslaught.

 

Clarke: It is with great delight that I can finally REVEAL ALL regarding the mystery man! His name’s Lincoln and he should forever hold a place in our hearts because he helped Octavia round up her IR file when she dropped it

Clarke: He is also a confirmed badass, hunky dude

Monty: *whistles* the IR file? We do owe him a favour.

Jasper: A sexual favour, amirite Octavia?? *winky emoji*

Clarke: Jasper we will throw you out of the chat if you don’t stop being weird

Octavia: I think I should just go out with Clarke, seeing how she’s defending my honour

 

Jasper goes offline.

 

Clarke: Whoops, I think Jasper’s sulking

Monty: I wouldn’t worry about it. He’ll probably be back in about two minutes.

Clarke: The love-life of Octavia Blake is too much to resist *winky emoji*

Octavia: I rescind my offer

Octavia: Lincoln remains my one and only

Bellamy: How old is he?

 

Clarke literally sits back and rolls her eyes.

 

Octavia: Jfc bro

Octavia: I didn’t ask to see his passport

 

Good on you, Octavia, she cheerleads silently. Bellamy Blake is a great friend and a great brother, but sometimes he really needs to just get over it and move on.

 

Bellamy: But you have him on Facebook?

Octavia: Nope

Octavia: Relax bro, he’s not a creeper

Bellamy: But he’s older than you?

 

Really, Bellamy? Really?

 

Octavia: I am NOT dating guys my age Bellamy, we’ve been through this

Octavia: They are way too immature

Jasper: What did I miss???

Octavia: ^^ case in point

 

Clarke chuckles out loud.

 

Bellamy: When are you seeing him again?

Octavia: There’s a party over in Trikru on Sat and YES you can all come

 

That’s news to Clarke. But good news, it’s been a while since she went out.

 

Octavia: But if you breathe down my neck all night Bell I swear I’m disowning you

Octavia: Same for you Jasper if you embarrass me

Jasper: How come Clarke and Monty don’t get warnings???

Octavia: Because they aren’t five years old

Bellamy: Because they can comport themselves with dignity

Bellamy: I am not five years old!

Clarke: You keep telling yourself that Bell

Bellamy: Now who’s the childish one?

 

Bring it, Bellamy. Clarke’s so ready to take out her frustration on someone (not seriously. Just to channel all the unsettled, nervy, shaken feelings into quickfire snarky banter), but unfortunately Octavia steps in before things can get out of hand.

 

Octavia: Clarkes not childish

Octavia: She’s my wingwoman

Clarke: Darn right!

Monty: It’s so cute how you don’t swear at all, Clarke

Clarke: Trust me, this is a recent thing

Octavia: Like u swear Monty

Jasper: Oh Monty swears

 

Don’t take it there, Jasper. Wherever you’re going, don’t go there.

 

Jasper: When he’s been on the moooooonshine *winky emoji**wolf emoji*

 

Wolf emoji? Moonshine?

 

Monty: I remember nothing and was therefore not responsible for my actions *monkey emoji*

Clarke: Wait whaaaat?!

Clarke: Monty, drunk??

Octavia: Oh yh

Octavia: U didn’t see him in freshers

 

Clarke casts her mind back. She had ended up going out twice in Freshers’ Week, and both times had had to take the elevator back to her room in Morton because the walls refused to stay still, dammit. She wouldn’t be surprised if she had seen Monty and had absolutely no recollection of it.

 

Bellamy: I think we should all agree to get Monty that drunk again on Saturday

Monty: Oh God.

Jasper: Yesssssss!!!

Octavia: It was fucking hilarious

Octavia: If ur cool with playing the party entertainment Monty

Octavia: Then pls hit the moonshine on Sat

Monty: …

Monty: Fine

Monty: You’re all very mean friends, you know that

Jasper: You love us really!!!!

Bellamy: Don’t worry about it, Clarke will look after you if things get messy

Clarke: Oh she will, will she?

Clarke: Ofc I will look after you Monty, you’re my favourite

Clarke: I was just annoying Bell

Monty: Thank God!

Octavia: Wait, MONTY is ur fave????

Clarke: After you O

Clarke: Everyone is secondary to you

Bellamy: I resent that implication

Monty: Don’t get in between them Bellamy, they’ll just resent you *cheeky emoji*

Jasper: Wait, what???

Clarke: Ignore him Jasper

Clarke: Octavia and I are not dating

 

Clarke is used to that question by now: everyone thinks she and Octavia are dating, or have some kind of ‘friends with benefits’ arrangement. Despite mirroring each other’s body language, constantly using the same mannerisms and reading each other’s minds, they have zero sexual chemistry.

 

Clarke: Unfortunately

Clarke: We would make the ultimate power couple

Octavia: Totally!!!

Jasper: Girls are so weird

 

Clarke indulges in another eye roll. She has heard Jasper talk for half an hour solid on the mind-numbing topic of Land Law, but it’s genuinely astonishing just how clueless he can be about some things. Speaking of clueless, she should probably switch off her phone and do some actual work. As much as she’d love to go through her Byzantine notes again, she kind of knows it already…

Prayer and Paint awaits her. Clarke sighs and digs on her shelf for a notebook.

 

 

Clarke glances up at her clock after a while (bought when she was twelve in a thrift store, it used to hang in their hallway back home, and her dad was forever tinkering with the springs to get it to run at the right speed) and realises she’s been studying for over an hour and a half. She’s more surprised than she should be: it’s not just her phone that provides a distraction when the skeletons in her closet start clattering around, but all the same it’s nearly five. Nearly dinner time. Clarke swallows the mild feeling of nerves and gets up from her desk.

 

As she stands up and her neck cricks, her phone begins blinking.

 

Octavia, maybe. Or somebody else looking to distract themselves from a mountain of studying.

 

 

It’s neither of those things.

 

Clarke takes two steps backwards and sits down heavily in her chair. The seat creaks in protest. Clarke doesn’t notice.

 

The little icon shows a profile picture that Clarke would recognise anywhere, and it sends a rush of slippery dread right through her guts.

 

Clarke’s first reaction is _Why?_ And her next five reactions, followed by a horrible roll in her stomach as shock gives way to a pulse of irrational anger that sets up a throbbing behind her forehead.

 

“What the _hell_ do you want?” She mutters to herself, fighting her warring emotions that are urging her to throw her phone clean across the room.

_Like seriously, what does she want?_

 

Clarke presses a hand to her forehead.

 

She could handle a chance, accidental meeting in the bathroom, where neither party had control over the situation (certainly not Clarke, Clarke had run away like a kid from a scary costume on Halloween, and she has to choke down something that might be a hysterical chuckle. Raven the Ripper, Raven the Reaper, Raven who’s barely two inches taller than Clarke and can’t even walk normally, for God’s sake).

 

But _this_?

 

 

And suddenly Clarke knows what she has to do; as though she’s shot from the swirling clouds into the eye of the storm, no longer buffeted and panicking and lost.

 

She’s done running. She has no choice now. She could ignore the message peeping from the top of her screen; she could ignore it for the whole semester, for the whole year, for as long as it takes for “ _Finn”_ to stop touching her skin like a brand, scorching the back of her throat like acid, throbbing through her veins like slow-acting venom.

 

But Clarke is suddenly through, so _effing done_ , with burying her head in the sand and letting the rest of her life crash through and around her like static noise. She wants to fight, to scream her name in defiance of the black hole that’s taken up residence inside her soul, to rage and drag herself forwards as an act of… She’s not sure what.

 

But at least it’s an action, rather than acting.

 

 

She slams her thumb down on top of the miniature of Raven, giving a goofy grin and pointing at a sign reading NASA like a nerd at a convention, and the message springs into life across the screen.

 

 

Raven: We should meet. You free this evening?

 

Clarke’s free hand curls into a fist, but she breathes through it. On the one hand, meeting up with Raven sounds like an unbelievably terrible idea, like, an idea that makes her brain buzz like a pneumatic drill.

 

But.

 

She has wanted, so much, so quietly that it was a secret almost from herself, to just sit in the same room as Finn and _explain_. Explain why she did what she did, because nobody understood, not Raven, not even Octavia and especially not her mother. But Finn was beyond reach now; she couldn’t open her mouth and spill out all the tangled mess of last summer to him, and she doubted he’d have understood even if she could.

_“I just… It was always about you, Clarke.”_

 

She can hear him now, helpless and vulnerable and pleading, and she mentally cranks the volume down to zero.

 

So, explaining herself to Finn is off the cards. She knows she has to move on, anyway: there’s nothing to be gained from imagining she could make him see what she had gone through, what he had put her through. If he hadn’t seen at the time, there was never going to be any point. (That’s what she tells herself, sternly, at three AM as tears slip from her eyelids like thieves leaving the scene of the crime).

 

But she could explain herself to Raven.

 

 

Clarke: I’m free, and I’ll meet you, but on one condition.

 

Clarke hasn’t used a full stop in a Facebook message since… Well, ever. But she’ll do even the pettiest of things to keep the playing field between her and Raven even.

 

**Message seen, 17:02.**

Raven: Name it.

Clarke: Octavia comes with me.

 

 

This, at least, was logical to Clarke. Octavia would have her back, she would keep Clarke from breaking down if it was too much. It wouldn’t be too much. It wasn’t allowed to be too much, Clarke had already made the decision.

 

But, just in case, she wanted Octavia there.

 

 

Raven: Deal.

 

Raven doesn’t even know who Octavia is, but somehow Clarke isn’t surprised. If Raven was determined enough to reach out to Clarke in the first place, Clarke guessed she’d accept whatever conditions Clarke set. Maybe she should have asked to bring a gun instead, she thinks (only semi-wryly).

Now just one thing remained: convincing Octavia to go with her.

 

 

Octavia: I DO NOT FUCKING UNDERSTAND U GRIFFIN

Clarke: You could just ring me to yell at me

Octavia: The last time I did that u accused me of breaking the speaker in ur phone

Clarke: … Fair

Octavia: Ur fucking unbelievable

Octavia: I swear six hours ago if I’d offered to do Raven in in that bathroom ud have said yes, no qs asked

Octavia: AND NOW U WANT TO MEET HER FOR DRINKS AND PROBABLY BRAID HER HAIR OR SOME SHIT

Clarke: That is NOT what this is about and you know it

Octavia: I DO NOT KNOW IT SO PLS FUCKING EXPLAIN RN

Clarke: It’s about getting closure

Octavia: Are u serious

Octavia: We r literally on another continent so you could move out n move on

Octavia: And now u want to meet the other woman

Clarke: I think you’ll find that was me

Octavia: FUCKING DETAILS CLARKE!!!!!!!!

Clarke: … Bad turn of phrase

Octavia: I just cannot believe u

Octavia: Is this rlly what this is about? Closure?

 

 

Clarke lies.

 

Clarke: Yes

Clarke: And I will go by myself if I have to

 

 

She’s pulled her trump card. Octavia, for all her snark and fire, can be guilt-tripped before you can say “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine…”. Clarke should feel mean, and she guesses she will, but not until later. Right now, the prospect of confronting Raven is hovering in front of her, tantalising and close and glimmering, and Clarke can’t bear to let it go, not as it makes her heart flit and her mind focus to a laser point.

 

 

Octavia: I can’t believe I’m saying this

Octavia: But I will go with you to meet Raven

 

Clarke lets out a breath she hadn’t realised was trapped and swimming in the roof-space of her lungs, and swears that she will find Octavia the best birthday present her friend has ever laid eyes on. Or maybe Christmas present. She will make it up to her somehow.

 

 

Clarke: Thank you thank you thank you thank you

Clarke: I will make this up to you

Octavia: What r friends for if not to provide backup for meetings with cheating bfs psycho exs??

Clarke: Well exactly *winky emoji**heart emoji*

 

 

Clarke is relieved and a little disappointed that Octavia hasn’t seen through her, but Clarke will get what she wants, and that’s what currently matters.

 

Octavia: Where are we meeting her?

Clarke: Place called the dropship, somewhere on the edges of Trikru

Octavia: Sounds like a nerd bar

Octavia: What should I wear???

Clarke: I’m playing good cop so you can wear whatever you like

Clarke: Something intimidating

 

 

Clarke has no qualms about attempting to gain the upper hand in this, even if it means having her best friend dress like a violent and dangerous emo goth.

 

Octavia: No probs

Octavia: Scary eyeliner it is

Clarke: See you outside library at 7:30?

Octavia: See you there!!

 

 

OK, the weather is warmer here than it is in Mecha, but it’s still _fridging_ cold, Clarke thinks. She buries the lower half of her face in the scarf poking out of the top of her coat and wills Octavia to hurry up. The library sits, like a majestic centrepiece, on the edge of a neatly manicured lawn that stretches back from the main road and is probably gorgeous in the spring and summer; perfect for sitting with revision notes and a picnic, like every ShutterStock photo taken of ‘campus life’. Right now, it’s dimly lit by orange lamps on the paths around the edges and a fierce wind sweeps across the open space.

 

The library backs onto the boundary to the district of the city known universally as Trikru (apparently it has a very long, complicated name that nobody knows the origin of: Bellamy tried to pronounce it once and nearly keeled over from effort). The Dropship is also somewhere on that imaginary line, and in the Dropship waits… Raven. Clarke gets jitters just thinking about it, but she forces them down, smoothing her face out so that there are no cracks to show.

 

“Clarke!”

 

Octavia is striding towards her as fast as she can in her clompy Doc Martins that lace all the way up her calves, and it’s clear that she’s followed Clarke’s instructions with enthusiasm. Clarke can’t see the colour of Octavia’s eyes in the poor light, but she knows the long sharp contours of black liner will make the green flecks glitter like emerald, and her cheekbones and eyebrows stand out against her complexion in a way that says ‘Don’t fuck with me’.

 

Clarke mentally claps a hand to her mouth.

 

“Let’s move, I’m frozen.” She tells Octavia, and the two girls begin walking back around the edge of the lawn.

 

“When you said ‘Good cop’,” Octavia comments, looking her up and down, “I thought you’d be wearing pastels and shit.”

 

Clarke snorts. She doesn’t think she owns anything pastel. Instead, she’s wearing her favourite pair of jeans (yes, her period sucks, but looking good is more important in this context), a clingy white top with artful slashes in the long sleeves and a leather jacket. Octavia is also wearing a leather jacket, but any artful rips are contained to her black skinny jeans, and Clarke happens to know that the black collar showing of her shirt means her bust is obscured by the ‘Explicit Content’ logo. It’s a man’s shirt, but Octavia pulls it off in the way she can pull off anything and make it look slightly sexy.

 

“Whereas you look like a kind of sexy hitman. Hitwoman.”

 

Octavia mock bows as they walk, and they go the rest of the way in silence, each thinking their own thoughts.

 

Clarke is fairly sure Octavia is thinking _‘What the fuck is going on?’_ , but doesn’t want to throw Clarke off by asking.

_Whoops._

 

That was twice in one night. Clarke mentally excuses herself from her list, ignoring the slight twinge of consternation in her hindbrain, and vows to do better tomorrow.

 

After all, tonight will be a total failure if she even obeys only the first of her personal commandments.

 

 

Octavia is right: the Dropship is a nerd bar. Bar stools shaped like hollowed-out copies of the Starship Enterprise, there’s even a fucking Tardis stood in the far corner (Clarke reasons that if she has the night off from the no-swearing policy, she might as well make the most of it). The lights are a bit off, and Clarke feels slightly like she’s stepped into the viewing platform of an aquarium, what with the weird, shifting shadows on the walls.

 

Octavia nudges her in the ribs.

 

“There she is.”

 

Clarke feels less than she expects when she lays eyes on Raven again. Not better or worse, just… less. Less of a punch to the stomach, less of a reeling in her brain. She takes courage from that, and strides across the bar before she can turn around and bolt back out the door into the chilly night.

 

Raven has a table to herself, one tucked at the side of the room and out of the way of most of the punters. Clarke notices that her left leg sticks out straight and at an angle, the scaffolding of her brace holding it steady as Raven watches her approach.

 

Her face is exactly the same as it was in the bathroom; God, had Clarke expected it to change in seven hours? Not exactly, but it’s still strange to see her just as she was frozen in Clarke’s memory, matching up to hundreds of other recollections that clamour louder and louder with every step Clarke takes. Clarke ignores them, and focuses on Raven.

 

Raven focuses on her.

 

It’s only when she is two feet from the table that Clarke has no idea how she’s going to play this, no idea what she’s going to say or how she’s going to say it, where she can even start.

 

Luckily, Octavia saves her.

 

“So, you’re Raven.” Octavia drops into a seat opposite her without being invited her, and Clarke recognises her _‘Bite me’_ look.

 

“And you’re the girl who gawped at me in the bathroom earlier when you fetched Clarke’s bag. I wondered if you’d turn out to be Octavia.”

 

Raven’s voice is so much nicer when she’s not screaming her lungs out: but again, it shouldn’t surprise Clarke to learn this. She sits down cautiously, and faces her. Octavia just narrows her eyes.

 

“Sorry for not getting up.” Raven says, her mouth twisting slightly into a smirk, and Clarke is surprised, again, to find out that Raven has a sense of humour.

 

“You’re probably wondering why I asked you here.” Raven continues, not a hint of a tremor or anger or resentment colouring her tone. She sounds like she could be discussing her class, or whether it’ll snow this year.

 

Clarke’s learning a lot about Raven in these few short minutes.

 

She’s astounded to realise that she likes what she’s discovering.

 

Clarke shrugs in reply, not looking away from those glossy brown eyes, whilst Raven regards her like a slightly dull painting hanging in a hotel corridor: a countryside landscape with a windmill, perhaps, or those stereotypical harbour pictures with rows of tiny fishing boats that Clarke’s pretty sure don’t exist in real life any more.

 

 

“Don’t get me wrong,” Octavia’s voice breaks the silence, “Clarke’s a hot girl. But if all you’re going to do is stare at each other all night then I might take myself elsewhere.”

 

Clarke swears Raven almost laughs… Almost.

 

“I wanted to talk.” She says. “But if Princess wants a staring contest then she should know that I never, ever lose.”

 

Clarke’s throat snaps shut like a trapdoor, and she has to look away.

 

“Don’t call me that.” She rasps, keeping her gaze trained firmly on graffiti that spells out ‘Bazinga!’ in fifty different styles on the opposite wall.

 

There’s another moment of silence.

 

Clarke takes a deep breath, and another, and another. She turns back to face Raven, who, as far as she can tell, hasn’t moved.

 

“Don’t call me Princess.” She says, again, her voice no stronger than before, her eyes locked on Raven’s and her nails digging into her own palms.

 

Clarke sees the instant Raven softens, like a sheet of thin ice melting in an instant, the mask drip drip dripping away in a tiny torrent.

 

“You care a lot, don’t you.” She says, so quietly that Clarke can barely hear her, can barely detect the note of surprise that ripples across the surface of Raven’s words. Clarke’s not entirely sure she was supposed to hear at all. She was expecting bitter from Raven, accusations from Raven, implacability from the girl who’d made her life indirectly a living hell for two months and then followed her around like a ghost, a spectre of blame and guilt.

 

Maybe that was why Clarke had really come tonight: it wasn’t a trial, it was an exorcism.

 

So Clarke is honest when she says,

 

“I wish I didn’t care so much.”

 

It hurts to admit that, to admit that she’s still not over it, still nowhere near being over it, and her hands begin to sting from how tight she’s been holding them closed.

 

“Do you hate me?” Raven asks, and Clarke almost laughs, almost. She’s so fucking bold, Raven, so straight to the fucking point, the same point that Clarke wondered if they’d dance around for hours.

 

So Raven deserves her honesty. And up until that exact moment, Clarke hadn’t known the answer. (She’d lied to Octavia, earlier, because it was so much easier to be the bigger person when you pretend it’s true to those who know you best).

 

“No.” Clarke says it. “No, I don’t.” She shakes her head, to emphasise the point as she says the words.

 

Wow. She hadn’t expected the feeling of release those three syllables offer her. She slowly unclenches her fists, and now she has a question to ask.

 

“Do you hate me?”

 

Raven shrugs by way of reply.

 

“If you hate Clarke, why did you invite her out here tonight?” Octavia bites the words, and Clarke jumps a little because she’d almost forgotten O was sitting next to her.

 

Raven glares at her like she’s channelling a death ray through her pupils, but Octavia doesn’t back down. Octavia never backs down.

 

“Let me break this down for you.” Raven starts talking suddenly, without warning or preamble, and all the coolness has slid from her voice, and although her tone is still controlled it’s more open, more raw.

 

“I meet the guy who I think is the love of my life in high school. We do everything together, we act like the stereotype of sickly teenage romance all the fucking time, he brings me flowers and shit and I swear the air I breathe will always be the same air as him because he’s the only thing that’s ever come into my life and stuck around. And when he leaves for college but I can’t because I’m dirt-poor and I miss out on my scholarship, I trust him when he says he’s mine forever. So you can imagine I’m not exactly jazzed to find out he’s shacking up with some blonde bimbo when I finally get my shit together and come to college to find him.”

 

Clarke would so love to be offended about that, but she can kind of see it from Raven’s point of view, and some instinct tells her that Raven has never talked about this, never let it all out and Clarke’s not about to stop her now.

 

“He breaks my heart, but I get over it because that’s what you do when the love of your life actually turns out to be a very shitty person,” Clarke feels an uncomfortable double sensation of guilt and a weird harmonising, because that’s practically what runs through her head every fucking day. That’s just what you do. Getting over someone is just what you do, and then-

 

“And then I found out that just when I thought things couldn’t get even more shitty, guess what! They do!”

 

Raven’s voice is rising, but there are tears shining in her eyes and Clarke can feel the rock sat in Raven’s throat like it’s in her own, the one that holds in all the words about what happened, what happened to Finn and to those unfortunate enough to be caught in the crossfire.

 

Raven sucks in a breath like a diver surfacing for air. Clarke’s impressed. She’d already be drowning (in fact, she might still be, gasping for air, thrashing in the strong, _stronger_ waves that threaten to bring her down. Maybe Raven doesn’t believe the waves are stronger than her, and that’s why she’s able to push back against the shadows of the past).

 

“And six months after my life is totally blown apart by _that_ , my leg is blown apart by a driver who didn’t look where he was going at an intersection.”

 

Clarke is reeling, her eyes flicking unconsciously to Raven’s brace. Before, it seemed incredible that she would even want to be in the same room as this woman; now, she can’t believe that she didn’t keep track of what happened to the girl who was so much a part of her life that she fell asleep worrying about her, worrying how much of threat she might be.

 

But Raven just keeps going, like a train on tracks, Clarke doesn’t think she could stop the rush of words if she tried.

 

“So given how totally fucked-up my life has become, I decide to make a fresh start.” And Clarke suddenly knows where this is going, and the clench of guilt is so strong she almost shuts her eyes in an attempt to block it out.

 

“And I fill in my Year Abroad forms. And on the first fucking day of term, when I get out of the lift and look down the corridor to see what other losers have jumped ship and moved to the rainiest corner of planet earth…”

 

Pain surges and crashes behind Raven’s expression, the tide of the past, bits of it keep spilling out into a grimace or a scrunching of her eyebrows or a catch in between her words.

 

“And I see Clarke Griffin.” Raven’s voice is a study in the completeness of pain, of how the universe will drop you to your knees and just when you think you can’t take any more, another hit comes sailing your way. It’s too-quiet and filled with pulsing emotion and Raven’s face is just broken and resigned and almost _done_. (But not done in the way Clarke feels on some days, just a done that means she’s drained of every drop of feeling and not every drop of hope or will to keep fighting).

 

“The girl who’s face reminds me, in technicolour, fucking _high-definition_ , of the single worst episode of my fucked-up life.”

 

 

There’s a part of Clarke that feels resigned, relaxed, even, because everything that Raven implies is so irrefutably true- that Clarke is to blame for ruining two lives (well, three, if she counts her own. Four if she includes Abby, but that’s one load of shit that isn’t on Clarke’s conscience)- and it’s unforgivable. It’s not debatable. It just is. You can’t move on from the kind of thing that happened between them.

 

Raven must have asked her here to let loose, once and for all, with everything finally behind them, and make Clarke feel all of the things she’s guilty for, all the black marks on her ledger. Clarke should have just told her that wasn’t necessary. Clarke is _weighed down_ with guilt, she shuffles with it, she picks it up in the morning and it sits on her chest as she lies in bed at night. It’s a burden she knows she deserves, and she carries it without complaint.

 

So when Raven says what she says next, Clarke nearly falls off of her chair.

 

 

“But I somehow couldn’t hate you. Still can’t.”

 

After Clarke has done nearly falling off of her chair, she stares wordlessly across the table at a now dry-eyed Raven.

 

“I wanted to hate you,” Raven stares right back, making it as a statement of fact, “and I still do, because it would make it so much easier sometimes to just hate you and be done with it.”

 

Clarke has realised that Raven doesn’t take the easy way out of anything.

 

“But,” Raven flings her hands up in a gesture of futility, “I can’t. I’m pretty sure you’re actually a decent human being underneath the cheerleader exterior. You just got suckered by a pretty face, exactly the same as I did.”

 

It’s weird and kind of refreshing to hear Finn referred to as ‘a pretty face’, and a smile half-tugs at the corner of Clarke’s mouth. Raven almost-smiles back. Neither smiles to their eyes, but it’s a start.

 

Octavia is, as usual, the first to recover.

 

“This is probably the weirdest counselling session I’ve participated in. Ever. It’s practically the wife and the mistress reconciling.”

 

“That’s actually-” Clarke begins to say that the scenario described is probably more likely than what she thinks is happening between her and Raven, but the woman in question cuts her off.

 

“Why, how many counselling sessions _have_ you participated in?” Her tone is back to its dry, sardonic, default humour setting, which Octavia takes as a challenge (it probably _is_ a challenge).

 

“Normally I’m the one doing the counselling for Clarke, y’know? Bottle of tequila,”

 

“O, no.” Clarke warns.

 

“… Ben and Jerrys on tap,”

 

“You do not have my permission to reveal this information.” Clarke hisses, because this is not the first impression (technically the _second_ first impression) she wants Raven to have of her, the crack up who requires alcohol, sugar and other unmentionables to drag herself out of a bad day.

 

As usual, Octavia ignores her, and hammers the final nail in the coffin.

 

“… And Taylor Swift songs, loud and proud.”

 

Clarke covers her forehead with one hand. That was probably the most embarrassing fact her best friend knows about Clarke (that, and wetting herself on the monkey bars when she was six) and Clarke just knows that Raven will forever see her as the tragic Swiftie singing drunkenly in the middle of the night.

 

Clarke should have a crystal ball or something. Raven’s eyes go wide, and then delighted in a way that makes Clarke think very slightly of evil. She leans forward in her chair just a little bit, her mouth cracking into a grin.

 

“Better go buy drinks, Griffin. Goth Girl here is going to tell me everything.”

 

 

They sit in the bar until midnight, when Raven says her leg is getting tired and she should probably head home.

 

Clarke can’t remember laughing so much in a while, laughing with someone who’s not Octavia or possibly Bellamy.

 

It’s surprising how little they talk about Finn.

 

They slowly make their way out of the door and back into the chilly November air, Clarke joyfully thinking _Fuck, it’s cold_ because she can.

 

“I’m glad I met you, Griffin.” Raven has an aversion to calling Clarke by her actual name, indeed, calling anyone by their actual name. “You’re OK.”

 

That’s probably the highest praise she’s ever going to give. They don’t hug, and Clarke is happy with that. She stands side-by-side with Octavia as Raven turns and hobbles away.

 

“I’m glad I met you, too.” Clarke calls after her. Although she can’t see, she’d happily bet that Raven is rolling her eyes.

 

“Who am I to resist the fuck-ups of fate?” She calls over her shoulder, and then she disappears around the corner. Clarke watches the empty street for a little longer, her thoughts strangely happy.

 

The fuck-ups of fate. It was a good way to describe them.


	5. Fate (II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and Lexa meet for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note to self: don't post chapters in the middle of the night. You forget important things.  
> This was never intended to be a chapter on its own, but I'm kind of happy with it! It's short and sweet, but obviously it's the start of something very big for both Lexa and Clarke.  
> Feedback always appreciated!

Clarke walks slowly and aimlessly, her eyes unfocused on the sidewalk in front of her and her arms wrapped loosely around her waist. It’s late, but there’s still traffic making a wet hiss on the roadway beside her: taxis heading for Morton, hoping to pick up the other students who are just starting to go out. The streetlights wash everything a dull orange. Clarke tried to paint that light once, when she was sixteen and just experiencing the thrill of a drunken amble home in the quiet of night, but she couldn’t manage it. Everything looked washed out instead of glowing, more plain instead of entirely more wonderful.

 

Her feet carry her unthinkingly through puddles, as though her brain isn’t sat in the cockpit; rather tugging along behind her like a balloon on a string. She’s becoming friends with Raven. Maybe she already is friends with Raven. The notion causes such a seismic shift in Clarke’s world that she could probably walk into a lamppost and not notice.

 

In the event, it’s not a lamppost. It’s actually much worse.

 

-

 

Lexa’s bell has rusted over so completely that the only noise it can make is a pathetic chirp, like a squirrel with whooping cough. Her front light is broken, her back light is dim. It’s patently dangerous for her to be out cycling at night, but…

Sleep has evaded her. And she needs to build up her stamina. And the cycle to Morton Sports Hall doesn’t even take her on any roads: at this time of night the pavements are practically deserted.

Lexa had not counted on the Errant Girl.

That’s what springs to mind when she lays eyes on her for the first time. Lexa has never actually seen anyone stoned, but this is how she’d imagine them to be: eyes glassy in the dim light, meandering a little over the cracked paving stones, limbs a little loose, and Lexa instinctively slows down. Knocking over civilians, no matter what drugs they’re on, is undesirable. Her brakes squeak as she squeezes them, a reedy noise of protest.

The Errant Girl doesn’t even look up.

She’s not wearing a coat, Lexa notices, and there’s nothing to keep the wind from tousling her long blonde hair. It flies around her face in tendrils, sometimes this way, sometimes that, like the snakes framing Medusa’s face in every book of Greek myths.

Lexa did not intend to compare Errant Girl to a gorgon. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Errant Girl is very attractive.

But also probably stoned.

Lexa slows down even more.

They are getting closer and closer together now, Errant Girl still staring fixedly at the floor, still taking strange looping detours across the two-metre wide stretch of stone and concrete.

Lexa could dismount from her bike and push it past her. It’s probably the safest option. She’s not about to hop off the curb into the oncoming traffic.

But maybe they’ll intersect at just the right time, like a comet just brushing past the gravitational pull of a planet, and continue on their separate trajectories. Maybe nothing will come of it at all.

Lexa does not dismount.

The slower she cycles, the more her bike wobbles too, as though she’s imitating Errant Girl’s random motions on the way to her destination.

There is perhaps five feet of space between them.

Later, Lexa wonders if fate reached into their little scene and pinched the wire of Lexa’s front brakes in her fingers. She dismisses the idea as silly romanticism.

But all the same, Lexa’s brake wire, pummelled and abused and shredded to bits from wear, snaps cleanly in two.

 

-

“Oof!”

Clarke snaps back to herself, brain jolting back into the control seat, as something heavy and solid and strangely vertical ploughs into her midriff. She staggers and almost goes down, but somehow she regains her balance.

The other girl is not so lucky.

As Clarke’s brain scrambles to assimilate all the information- like every over-dramatic army guy in every known disaster movie _, “I need more intel! WTF just happened?!”_ \- she instinctively reaches out for the girl on the ground, the girl who’s pushbike is lying between them.

_Was she actually paying so little attention that she walked into the path of a bike? Like, WTF brain?_

The girl ignores Clarke’s proffered hands and starts to extricate herself.

“Oh my God! I’m so sorry! Are you hurt?” Clarke gabbles. She _gabbles_. She did one year of med school for Christ’s sake, gabbling to a potentially injured stranger is not acceptable, but Clarke The Med Student is about as far from being in control here as Current Clarke is from the moon.

“I am fine.” The girl answers, stiffly, swinging one leg away from the bike frame and pulling herself away. “Could you move, please.”

“Oh! Oh, right, sorry.” Clarke is still hovering over the front wheel, which currently sticks straight up in the air like an animal with a broken limb, and she’s in the way. She steps back, and the girl stands up, lifting her bike the right way up at the same time.

Clarke immediately notices two things: the girl is not fine, she has a graze on her left elbow that probably has grit in it, and she is, well… _fine._ All long legs and neat little torso and cheekbones that are even sharper than Octavia’s.

Also, she’s not wearing a coat. Clarke has the irrational urge to offer her her jacket.

“Your elbow…” She says, for want of anything better to say.

“It’s fine.” Clarke notices that her voice is a little husky. She also has another irrational urge to ask if she wants Clarke to take a look at it, because she does have medical training. She shoves the thought away.

And anyway, the girl is already moving, tugging her helmet straight (she’s wearing a helmet? Clarke didn’t think anyone wore helmets to cycle anymore), pushing her bike away up the hill.

“Wait!” Clarke calls. The girl pauses, and looks back. Her eyes are like green glass, flat and clear, her expression indifferent.

“I’m really sorry about walking into you.” Clarke tells her, and she means it, and she feels another irrational urge to explain herself to the stranger, because…

Well, Clarke doesn’t have a good excuse, but she’s going to anyway.

“Do you ever end up being so lost in thought you just forget where you’re going?” She asks, in her most winsome tone, injecting a little humour into her words, _haha, isn’t it silly how our brains can get sometimes?_

_(Clarke tells her this because she wants the girl to say yes, to ask her what’s on her mind, to make her feel less alone with all that’s happened and all that she’s done.)_

The girl gazes blankly back at her.

“No.” She says, and shakes her head once to the left, once to the right. She turns, swings her leg back over her bike, and pedals swiftly away.

Clarke tries not to feel like someone’s just hollowed out another little piece of her soul, because the girl is, was, a random stranger who crashed into her in the street. And it hurt quite a lot, actually, Clarke’s probably going to have bruises in the morning.

But it didn’t hurt as much as that one little word.

Clarke clutches her hands back to her side and keeps walking, scanning the vicinity, angry with both herself and with Stranger Girl.

 _All she had to do was lie,_ Clarke snarls to herself, _all she had to do was say, “Yes, isn’t it funny?” and continue on her merry way. She didn’t have to make me feel like…_

_An idiot?_

_A crack up?_

_A freak?_

 

_And I didn’t have to get so emotionally invested in the opinion of a girl who can’t even look where she’s riding her damn bike._

Clarke walks faster, and pays careful attention to where she’s going.

Unfortunately, it is now too late.

 

-

Lexa cycles to the top of the hill, then gets off and walks the rest of the way home. Cycling uphill without functioning brakes is one thing, but downhill- Lexa will take no other unnecessary risks tonight.

 _Cycling uphill was an unnecessary risk_ , a little voice points out. _But you did it anyway_.

I made a logical choice, Lexa tells herself. The logical choice.

 _It was not logic that guided you_ , the voice remarks, snidely, _you ran away._

Lexa’s jaw clenches.

What does it matter, anyway? It’s too late to worry unnecessarily about what happened or how she reacted.

In all likelihood, she will never see Errant Girl again.

Lexa tells herself she’s fine with that.

 

 

She isn’t.


	6. New Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke gets to know Raven a little more, and takes a trip down memory lane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References to the death of a parent. And very indirect references to Clarke's period.  
> I'm sorry, I know I gave you a little bit of Lexa in the last chapter: but it's going to be a little while before she's back! The good news is that I'm cranking out these chapters at a good pace, so you shouldn't have to wait too long. Plus, I like Clarke and the Expats, they're fun to write.  
> Take note of the new tags!

The green-eyed girl bothers Clarke more than she should on Thursday. Not at first, but she does.

The hornet buzzes, loudly: Clarke groans. As she slowly drifts into consciousness, her brain moves through the layers of confusing that occurred yesterday. Raven is a… friend?

 

Yep, that definitely happened.

 

They definitely sat at a table in the Dropship and debated for fifteen minutes solid whether Red was a better album than Fearless.

 

Raven admitted that she might know _some of_ the words to ‘Mean’.

 

Clarke had almost cried a little when Raven told her that Finn brought her sunflowers before they got in the limo to prom. It had been a surprisingly long time since she’d cried tears of pure fury over Finn, one’s that weren’t mixed with a tincture of guilt. It had felt surprisingly good.

 

Their first formal together, sunflowers brandished through the door like a sword to make her laugh as she stood in her strapless dress, waiting for him. The unoriginal bastard.

 

She growls now just at the memory, lying on her side and slowly coming awake.

There was something else irritating her, too; she tries to place it.

Oh yeah. The green-eyed girl. The bike.

 

_“No.”_

 

The little shake of the head, once to each side.

 

Clarke nearly bristles with annoyance (and a little bit with hurt, which is ridiculous. This girl is a _stranger_. Clarke will never see her again).

The memory has at least served one purpose: Clarke is fully awake, and she supposes she might as well get up. It’s nine AM, which is the earliest Clarke’s ever woken up when she has nothing to get up for- because Thursdays are a blessed day of no lectures, no tutorials, no inducement to study of any kind. Clarke shrugs it off as a kind of emotional anti-hangover from the stresses of the day before and slouches into the bathroom.

Her period is still going strong, and she feels grotty, slightly leaden. Blessing the check-box she’d ticked eight months ago that said ‘En-suite’, she reaches into the shower and cranks the heat all the way up. Thankfully, it looks like she’s missed the early morning rush on hot water, and steam swiftly begins to billow upwards out of the cubicle.

Clarke is happy to admit that she enjoys her showers. As soon as the initial lava-blast hits her skin, she feels at least twenty percent better about the day ahead, or the day that’s just been. She shows her appreciation for this remarkable effect by singing. Loudly.

“Snow glows white on the mountain tonight…”

Might as well kick things off with one of her favourites. Another of the joys of having a private shower: nobody can hear her voice crack as she strains for,

“Let the storm rage _on_!

The cold never bothered me anyway.” She croons, hearing the little chimes that round off the number in her head, and feels silly but happier, like always. She’s always been a shower singer, since she was old enough to take showers by herself. Her dad always said that she had perfectly evolved for it, because the noise of the shower drowned out her general lack of all things… singy. Clarke usually hit him for that, laughing despite herself, and her mom would be laughing too.

Despite herself, Clarke smiles at the memory.

-

Octavia: Are u ill????

Octavia: I’m being serious

Octavia: Are u sick

Octavia: Is the only cure known to man hidden in the basement of the library

Octavia: Bcause that is the ONLY reason I can think of for u to be up already and going to THE LIBRARY

Octavia: Do u even know where it is

Octavia: ANSWER ME GRIFFIN

Clarke rolls her eyes at the slew of messages from O as she steps gratefully into the warm air blowing from the entrance of Bolton Library.

Clarke: Good morning to you too!!

Clarke: I just felt… studious

Clarke: I know, hard to distinguish from something fatal

Clarke: But I guess I probably shouldn’t fail my January exams after coming all this way *cheeky emoji*

Octavia: I’m speechless

Octavia: Did Raven bodyswap u or something?

Clarke: Hey, I used to study in high school!

Clarke: I’m just returning to my roots

Octavia: Whatever

Octavia: Might see u there later

Clarke: Cool cool *smiley emoji*

 

Clarke slips her phone back into her pocket and looks around her. Octavia has a point: Clarke can count the number of times she’s been in this building on her fingers, and she has no idea where to go. She wants somewhere reasonably quiet, where the presence of other focused people will peer pressure her into staying off Tumblr and Facebook. Guessing randomly, she strides off up a staircase to her left, taking her to the upper levels.

It’s certainly quieter up here: less hustle and bustle, more people browsing incomprehensible sections like ‘Flora and Fauna of the Silurian Age’ from behind thick spectacles. Clarke shimmies her way between the shelves towards an open plan area that makes the most of picture windows opening out over the Main Lawn. The view isn’t much in the weather today- grey, cloudy, dull- but it’s a nice touch. Clarke is about to head for a table for two in the far corner, when her eyes register a familiar figure hunched over a spread of books.

Raven. Huh. Must be fate.

 

Clarke makes her way over, then approaches cautiously. They talked a lot last night, but can one evening really erase two years of… well, all the crap they went through (Clarke is once again grimly adhering to her list, and she’s proud of the fact)? Who knows what Raven will think in the cold light of day?

“Gotta stop meeting like this, Griffin.” Raven barely glances up. “People will think we’re secret lovers or something.”

This is so far from the truth of whatever this tentative relationship might become that Clarke laughs.

“Clandestine meetings in the bathrooms.” She jokes, and isn’t it funny how she can joke about something that yesterday had threatened to tear her apart?

Reconciling with Raven really had been good for her.

“You wish, Griffin.” Raven smirks up at her, and Clarke would be lying if she didn’t feel a warm rush of relief at the clear resumption of friendly relations. “Are you going to sit down or what? You’re making me nervous, hovering up there.”

Clarke pulls out a chair and sits opposite. Then wrinkles her nose at the tome Raven is poring over.

“Is that a book or a gravestone?” She jabs back, aiming for the same humour as the girl across the table- sharp and snarky and witty. She doesn’t manage it with quite the same aplomb as Raven, but she tries.

Raven only glares more ferociously at the page in front of her.

“It is a gravestone,” she mutters, “Mine. Please have the inscription read ‘Raven Reyes Really Did Try To Pass Materials’.” Clarke snorts.

“Oh, you think this is funny? Combining Young’s modulus and tensile stress and overall elastic limit with distributed forces and structural deformation?”

Given that Clarke understood about three words of that, she has no other option than to sit back and look impressed. Raven catches the look.

“ _Thank_ you.”

She goes back to her book.

Clarke takes that as her cue to unpack her notes, which look depressively thin in comparison to Raven’s two, no, three squared-paper notebooks and the Gravestone. Oh well. Clarke’s here, and that’s quite an achievement.

Clarke hadn’t been lying to Octavia when she said she’d studied in high school. She had studied all the time in high school, she’d even actually enjoyed it, and she’s a little shocked to find that same interest rekindling a little as she goes through Italian Renaissance Art, copying out the crucial points from her lectures, occasionally peering forward to decipher a scrawling sentence. It’s reassuring to her, like discovering that High-School Clarke is maybe still there underneath all the layers of scar tissue and bad memories.

Almost two hours pass in this easy silence, the rustle of a page or the click of a pen the only noises to disturb the peace that’s fallen between them. It’s nice to study with someone who has absolutely no clue about Clarke’s subject, and vice versa. It means neither of them have to deal with interruptions. However, Clarke’s stomach has other ideas.

“Oooh,” Clarke mutters, as there’s a particularly loud rumble, “sorry.”

“S’OK.” Raven sighs, and slams the textbook shut, “Probably a good idea to go and have lunch anyway. I have a lab at two.”

“OK.” Clarke says, then realises that Raven might be intending to eat on her own. The least she can do is offer. “Um, hang on. Normally the rest of the transfer students eat together, do you want to join us?”

Raven wrinkles her nose. “Are they all as weird as you and Octavia?”

“Yep. Probably weirder.” She might as well be honest.

Raven considers, briefly.

“OK. Should be entertaining if nothing else.”

“Oh, they’re definitely that.”

-

Clarke types as they walk.

Clarke: I’m bringing a new friend to lunch!

Clarke: Raven, she’s the other transfer student

That’s as much as Clarke is willing to tell Jasper and Monty: she immediately opens her chat with Octavia and writes a parallel message.

Clarke: Can you please explain to Bell about Raven?

Clarke: Would rather keep the whole thing on the dl with J and M

Bellamy was there at the fateful party, when Raven threatened to maim Clarke in multiple original ways (that girl would have been at home working for the Spanish Inquisition or some shizzle, seriously), and it’s too much to hope that he’s forgotten her face.

Octavia: Nw

About ten seconds later,

Octavia: Done

Clarke: Thank youuuu!

Octavia: Bell is cool he won’t say anything

Clarke: You’re the best!!

Octavia: I am

Clarke: So modest

Octavia: Who am I to deny the truth?

 

Clarke snorts, then catches the weird look from Raven.

“Sorry. It was just… Octavia.”

Raven nods.

“Are you two close?”

Clarke nods.

“She’s basically my sister. We’ve known each other forever. Octavia’s mom died when they were really little, my mom and dad kind of adopted her when their dad disappeared.”

“They?” Raven asks.

“Oh, yeah. Octavia’s brother, Bellamy. He transferred too. They’ve somehow ended up in the same year; they’re basically inseparable.”

“So I’m guessing he knows about Finn?” Raven’s voice is careful, like it was at the start of their conversation last night.

“Yes.” Clarke answers unwillingly, then decides she might as well get it over with. “Octavia and Bellamy know, but Monty and Jasper- the other transfer students- they don’t, so-“

“Don’t worry.” Raven’s nodding. “I get it. I’d rather every random stranger I come across doesn’t know, too.”

Clarke nods too, relieved, but that casts her mind back to the girl on the pavement last night. She was a stranger, and she didn’t know, and she evidently didn’t care. Clarke feels a little sour just thinking about it.

They’re just crossing the lawn when someone hails them.

“Raven, hey!”

Raven stops, and only Clarke can see her roll her eyes. Then she turns to face the guy with shaggy blonde hair who’s bounding up behind them like a puppy.

“Hey, Wick.” She says, voice brusque.

“You’re not bailing before lab, are you?” He asks her, totally ignoring Clarke.

“Wick, why would I do that? When I have three hours of your scintillating company to look forward to?” Sarcasm practically _oozes_ from every syllable, yet this guy seems undaunted. Clarke hikes up her respect for him a notch.

“Just checking, Little Miss Snarky.” He replies, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “I can tell you that I for one am eagerly anticipating three hours of sass and sarcasm directed at my incompetence, which _happened_ to save your ass last time.”

“Whatever, Wick.” Raven says, clearly done with the conversation.

“See you later then.” He gives her a mocking salute, shoots Clarke a curious look, then disappears back the way he came.

Clarke can’t resist.

“Who was that?” She asks, playfully curious, and Raven replies with another eyeroll.

“Just Wick. My incompetent lab partner.”

Didn’t sound that way from what he said, Clarke thinks, but decides not to push it. Anyway, Raven doesn’t actually seem that annoyed. More like she enjoys pretending she dislikes Wick. And who is Clarke to shatter that delusion?

-

Jasper and Monty already have ‘their’ booth in the ASU, and Clarke squeezes in beside them to give Raven room for her brace.

“Raven, this is Jasper and Monty.” Clarke points to each in turn. Jasper immediately flicks his bangs out of his eyes and gives a goofy grin.

“Hey!” He sticks out a hand to shake, and Raven looks him up and down, clearly unimpressed.

“Please feel free to ignore Jasper. It’s what we all do.” Octavia cuts into their little exchange, taking the end seat. Clarke snorts, and they all ignore Jasper’s wounded exclamation.

“So, what do you study, Raven?” Monty says, gamely.

“Mechanical Engineering, with an extra module across triple E.” Raven says this with the supreme confidence of someone who knows they’re basically a certified genius. After having seen Raven work this morning, Clarke can’t help but agree.

“Oh, cool!” Monty says. “I’m studying Computer Science. Richmond is such a maze, right?”

They fall into an easy conversation about the labyrinthine passages of their main building and the temperamental lifts. Clarke, Octavia and Jasper can’t do much more than listen, seeing as they spend most of their time at the opposite end of the university complex, but by the time their discussion comes to a close Bellamy has arrived.

“Hey. Raven, right?” He shakes her hand and sits down. Clarke doubts any of the others notice how Raven’s voice tightens when she says “Hey” back. They are probably all thinking of the same thing.

_A darkened living room, music thumping in the background, Finn’s arms locked around Raven’s waist as she spits curses at Clarke, who stands their wordlessly and tries to process how the guy she thought she’d spend the rest of her life with has managed to dupe her so completely._

Jasper, evidently trying to win his way into Raven’s good books, offers to go and fetch the food. They pour change into his hands (‘Muggle money’, Octavia says sneeringly) and send him on his way, then have an enjoyable time berating Raven for never having read the Harry Potter books all the way through (“The movies just aren’t the same, Raven!” “Exactly, they’re better.” “NO.”).

Once they all have their food, Monty asks,

“So, Clarke, how’s the list going?”

Monty and Jasper know about Numbers Two to Seven, and that’s all they ever need to know as far as Clarke’s concerned. She accidentally let it slip during orientation, and Jasper had badgered those seven points out of her, but they were getting no more. Nothing about forgetting, or moving on.

However, discussion of Numbers Two to Seven is relatively harmless, so Clarke allows it.

“Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask you guys something. I’ve basically done nothing for Number Five: any ideas?”

This is their Number Five, not her’s.

Raven swallows her mouthful. “What list?”

“Clarke has a list,” Jasper explains eagerly, “of things to improve until she becomes an actually decent human being and they let her back into normal society.”

“Har har Jasper.” Clarke says. “But yes, I have a list.”

“Number One,” Octavia says, “Swear less.”

“Number Two,” Jasper carries on, “Drink less. Monty?”

“Number Three is meditate more, isn’t it?” Monty asks Clarke. She affirms.

There’s a short silence as they all look at Bellamy.

“Are you seriously expecting me to do this? It’s Clarke’s list.” He says, still chewing.

“Fine.” Jasper exhales, exasperated. “I’ll do it myself. Number Four; be on time. Number Five; exercise more. Number Six; make new friends. That’s Clarke’s list.”

“You know Jasper, it’s extraordinary how you can remember such inane details.” Bellamy ribs him, and Jasper glares across the table.

“Children.” Octavia sighs, and they both have the decency to look slightly ashamed of themselves.

“You realise how corny that sounds,” Raven says sardonically, “that you made a list to reinvent yourself.”

Clarke just shrugs.

“Number Five?” She reminds them.

“I know!” Octavia pipes up. “Kick-boxing! You’d love it, Clarke, I just know it.”

“You kick-box?” Raven asks, sounding almost impressed.

“Yes.” Octavia replies, just as Clarke firmly says “No.”

“No kick-boxing, O. We’ve been through this.” Clarke continues. “Anyone else?”

“You’re so mean.” Octavia pouts, but Clarke’s practiced at ignoring her.

“You could do something really crazy, like archery.” Jasper suggests, but Clarke shakes her head: she has terrible aim when she’s just throwing a ball, putting sharp and pointy objects in her hands doesn’t sound like a good idea.

“Why don’t you revisit something you did when you were younger?” Monty cranes around his best friend, having already finished his sandwich. “You know, a passion you gave up when you got older.”

“What was yours, Monty?” Octavia teases. “Minecraft?”

“No,” Monty says with dignity, “It was badminton. I’ve been thinking about joining the society for it actually.”

“They have a badminton society?”

“They have an _everything_ society, Bell.”

But Monty’s got Clarke thinking. There was one thing…

“I’ve got it! Good idea Monty.” She bestows a smile on him. “I’m going to take up horse-riding again.”

“Why didn’t _I_ think of that?” Octavia says, disgusted with herself, glaring at Monty as though it was his fault. “You went through such a phase, you even had My Little Ponies until we were twelve.”

“ _Thank you_ , O.” Clarke can feel her face burn with blush, and she’s never been so thankful that she hid those sugar-coloured plastic models up in the attic where she could play with them in peace until she was at least thirteen and a half. At _least_.

“You should join the society for it.” Raven points out. “Horse-riding lessons cost a fuck-ton of money.”

“Is that actually a quantifiable unit? A fuck-ton?” Clarke wonders absently. “And anyway, I’ll need a few beginner lessons before I start. It’s been…” She mentally counts backwards in her head, “nearly six years since I was last on a horse. I’ll probably be a little rusty.”

She pulls out her phone as the conversation continues around her, and Googles ‘horse riding lessons near Ark University’ before she can question if this is really a good idea. Two minutes later and she’s booked herself onto a beginner’s lesson, ten AM this Saturday. Polis Stables, seven miles out from the centre of town.

“Sorted.” She announces, then tells them about the lesson.

“You want to turn up hungover to your first lesson? That’s poor form Griffin, and that’s saying a lot coming from me.” Raven doesn’t seem keen on the idea.

“I’m not going out this Friday, thank you very much, Raven.”

Bellamy shakes his head in mock sorrow. “And there I was, thinking you’d grown out of your hermit stage.” Clarke considers briefly if the finger counts as swearing and decides it does. Unfortunately. There’s really no other appropriate response to Bellamy’s comment. Octavia hits him though, and the grunt of pain is about eighty-nine percent as satisfying.

“You want to join us on Saturday, Raven?” Octavia asks, as though nothing has happened. “We’ve been invited to a house party in Trikru. Sounds like it’s going to be amazing.”

That’s quite a hard sell, even from Octavia: she must be more excited to see Lincoln than Clarke realises, and she makes a mental note to ask her about it.

“Sure, why not.” Raven says. “It’s actually been a fair while since I got properly trashed.” She checks her watch and levers herself upright. “As exquisite as this has been, I have a lab to attend. See you losers tomorrow.” She makes her exit.

“Somebody add her to the chat?” Jasper asks nobody in particular.

“On it.” Clarke promises. “But I think I’ll head home now. Enjoy my day off.”

Ignoring the chorus of indignation and injustice, Clarke waves goodbye and heads out of the ASU.

No more distractions. She can't avoid thinking about it anymore, and in an instant Clarke is swallowed by memories.

-

Octavia was right, Clarke did have a phase. From about seven to fourteen years old, she privately considered horses to be the greatest creatures to walk the earth on four legs. When her parents had taken her to a barn for the first time, Clarke remembers walking round holding her breath, trying to preserve the feeling of being in a dream that’s come true (that was the feeling she’d had on her first date with Finn, too. _Breaking Number One, already, Griffin?_ She pushes the thought away with all the strength she can muster).

Somewhere at home, there’s a drawer stuffed with wobbly, misshapen drawings and paintings and collages of the four-legged beasts that Clarke laboured over for hours. She’d even written poems for God’s sake, poems that were so bad that not even a kid’s horse magazine would publish them (she still remembers the rejection letter).

Her dad used to smile and call her sport, asking her to pick a favourite from the posters tacked up around her room. Even her mom was proud of her, because Clarke wasn't stereotypically athletic, but she was good at being on a horse, surprisingly good.

One year, she took part in the show at the local stables where she learned to ride (the teachers had called her a natural, but Clarke didn’t particularly care. She just liked how it felt when she was up in the saddle, reins loose in her tiny hands, ankles jabbing insistently against the sides of the dead-lazy pony she was riding) and Clarke still has the green ribbon hanging from the corner of her mirror at home. For a long time, she just assumed she would work with horses when she was older. It seemed obvious.

The summer after she turned fourteen, her dad took her on a holiday with one final surprise: a trail ride on the final day, through the spectacular scenery of Montana’s mountain lakes. Clarke can still see every detail- the creamy white mane of the palomino she was riding, the verdant green and sparkling blue of every vista she looked at, the shining grin that split across her dad’s face as he sat behind her on a blood bay.

“Look at you. My baby’s all grown up!” He told her, and she could hear the pride that swelled in his voice like a mountain stream that pressed against the confines of its run, and although she’d laughed and said “Daaaaad…” because she was a teenager and averse to any displays of parental love, she’d still smiled at him with all the happiness she could muster.

That memory glowed in her mind like the last day of summer, and in many ways, it was.

Two weeks later he was diagnosed.

That was the last time she’d been horse-riding.

 

Clarke’s eyes sting with tears and she ducks her head furiously so that nobody else on the sidewalk can see. Why was every good and precious memory that she had poisoned by something awful?

 _You just have to make new memories, brainless._ A voice that sounds suspiciously like Octavia’s rings through her head.

Clarke keeps her head down, swallows back the lump in her throat, and focuses on what she has to wear for Saturday morning.


	7. Encounter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke struggles a little bit, and Octavia helps her out.
> 
> And a certain someone makes an appearance...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short little thing.  
> Thank you for the kudos! Makes me so happy!  
> WARNINGS: death of a parent, description (not hugely graphic) of a panic attack.

Clarke spends Thursday afternoon lazing around. She paints her toenails green, gazes half-heartedly at the screen of lecture notes from yesterday before deciding she’s accomplishing nothing and turning up the volume of her Spotify playlist. She makes an attempt at productivity by vacuuming her floor and finishing all of her washing up, but in reality she knows today will be a _nothing_ day from now on: a day when memories are just too loud and large in her head to allow for much more than token attempts at any activity. Not even meditating appeals: the idea of being in the quiet with nothing but her thoughts yelling at her frightens her. Nevertheless, she pulls up her chair and makes her way through the breathing meditation through sheer force of will, because it’s on her list, dammit, and she will not be defeated already.

She supposes she’s been on a winning streak for a good long stretch now- she hasn’t been this immobilised since the second week of term, when she essentially switched off and became Robot Clarke who went to lectures and consumed food and tried to sleep at night but couldn’t because that was when her heart and all the pain within it woke up again. Octavia had been there for her, texting her to remind her to eat and shop and what classes she had that day. Clarke has never confessed to anyone, let alone herself, that she would have preferred Octavia to do what she’d done in the months directly following Jake’s death: her best friend had almost become Clarke’s shadow, trailing her everywhere, badgering her to eat and complete all her assignments in person. Held her whilst she’d cried at two AM. Cried with her, even. She’d done exactly the same thing when Finn… Well, she’d been with Clarke throughout that fall more than Clarke had been with Clarke.

But, no. Clarke couldn’t ask her to do that again, not when she was in the middle of the upheaval that was all down to Clarke anyway.

Clarke could handle it. It was probably better anyway, crying alone. Less collateral damage.

Clarke knows that the tears will come later, when it’s pitch-dark outside and even the noise of the parties has begun to dim, but for now she lies in a flat kind of stupor, head on her pillow, not bothering to change into her pyjamas. It’s only four in the afternoon, for God’s sake. She’s not quite reached that stage. Not yet.

 

 

-

She lay on an empty bed, the sharp, sickly smell of hospital gathering and solidifying in her airways.

 _Beep, beep, beep_.

The noise is reassuring. Her mom told her that the beeps mean everything’s good, everything’s ticking along nicely inside the cage of her dad’s chest. Everything else might be falling apart, but his heart is still doing its job. It hasn’t fucked up like the cells of his gut and his spine and maybe his brain. Clarke’s eyes are closed, but she can visualise the cancer like a pulsating growth, oozing its way inexorably up the staircase of her dad’s vertebrae, homing in on its final target.

The thought makes her feel sick, but she’s used to it.

There’s another noise apart from the beeping: a hissing wheeze that’s only just audible over the general electronic hum of machines.

Her dad’s still breathing. That’s all that matters.

 

 

-

“Honey, what’s the matter?”

In tears over her algebra homework, her mom home early for once and cooking pasta bake, her dad typing on a clunky laptop at the other end of the table.

“I. Just. Don’t. Get. It.”

Full of twelve-year-old rage and frustration, spitting the words even as she hates to admit she’s struggling. She wonders if her teacher will see the tear-stains on her exercise book and feel guilty. She vehemently hopes so.

“What’s the problem, sweetheart?” Abby asks, chopping an onion.

Clarke gestures wordlessly at the page, furious.

“Math.” She finally gets out, and then her sense of melodrama kicks in. “I hate it, I hate it! I wish we didn’t have to do math at all!” Her lower lip trembles.

“You’d better take this one, dad.” Abby smiles over at the pair, and Jake looks up. Clarke cannot stand them laughing at her- but her dad does know how to help. She glares down at her clenched hands.

Her dad pulls a chair round to sit next to her, a calming presence despite how much Clarke would like to remain angry.

“Now, what’s the question, sweetheart?”

 

 

-

“What’s the matter, baby?”

Her hands clenched around her head, breath coming much too quick. Intellectually, Clarke knows that this is a panic attack. It still feels like she’s dying.

Finn is suddenly in front her, his large hands covering hers. Clarke loves the contrast between their skin: hers is roughened from the disinfectant and hand sanitizer, his is smooth and cool.

 _Cold hands, warm heart_. That is certainly true of her Finn.

“Just focus on breathing, baby, OK? Sit up a little, give your lungs a bit more room, huh? That’s it. Breathe with me. One, two. Out, two, three. One, two. Out, two, three.”

He talks her down from the edge, and her dorm room comes back into focus. She is totally boneless from the adrenaline crash, her hands shaking, and she lets Finn pick her up and set them both down on her bed. Her head pillows on his chest, his arms hold her in with just the right pressure. Just feeling his breath through her hair helps her feel more grounded.

“How did you get in here?” She asks, finally, when she has a voice again.

Finn smiles, she can feel the shape of his mouth change.

“You really should lock your door, princess.”

Clarke shudders.

“I’m glad I didn’t today.” She curls a little more into him, and he cuddles her closer.

“Me, too.” He says softly.

They lie there quietly for a bit longer.

“What set it off this time?” Finn asks, softly, and Clarke reminds herself that he isn’t pressuring her. He’s just trying to be a good boyfriend.

“Midterms.” She says, trying to ignore the sick twist in her stomach at the thought, but she has never been so unprepared for an exam, ever, and if she fails…

“Hey. Hey. Come back, princess.”

Clarke realises her breath has been getting shorter again, and forces herself to relax, breathe in time with the rise and fall of Finn’s chest under her cheek.

“It will be OK, Clarke.” Finn whispers to her, and she believes him. “It will be OK.”  


Clarke falls asleep like this, comforted by the thought. Finn has never lied to her, and he never will.

 

 

-

_Brrrrrinnnngggggg._

Clarke is lying on her side, curled up like a hedgehog, her forehead pressed firmly against her palms.

_Brrrrrrrinnnnnngggggg._

In a daze she looks up, and sees her phone lighting up with an incoming call, and Clarke dives for it blindly. She will seize on any distraction, any opportunity to get out of her head.

“Hello?”

“Hey, C!”

Octavia. Clarke has never been so thankful.

“Hey!” She tries so hard to sound normal, but there is something a little off in her tone and instantly Clarke knows that Octavia knows. She’s half relieved and half disappointed.

“You’re coming over, right now. Bring your pyjamas and toothbrush and shit.”

“O…”

“ _No_ , Clarke. I _know_ you. If you’re having a bad day then there’s no way in hell I’m leaving you by yourself.”

Clarke sighs, and gives up the losing battle.

“Fine. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Good. Have you eaten?”

“Not yet.”

“K. I’ll have some food ready. See you soon.”

“Yeah, see you soon.” Clarke hangs up and realises that she’s been lying in the dark for the best part of an hour. She switches on the light and starts slowly gathering her belongings.

 

 

Octavia ended up in Skeel Halls, about a fifteen minute walk from Morton. Clarke is thankful it isn’t far- she doesn’t have time to beg off, turn around and sink back into her vortex of misery.

Octavia is waiting for her outside, arms wrapped around herself against the cold, but she runs out to hug Clarke as soon as she sees her approach. They stand there, just embracing, and Clarke feels tension she didn’t know she was carrying trickle out of her, her face buried in Octavia’s shoulder.

“It’s fucking freezing, Clarke, can we go in now?” Octavia mutters, and Clarke laughs, her throat strangely thick. Octavia darts back indoors and Clarke follows.

Skeel is modern and clean, well designed, with a lot of light and not too many stairs: the only drawback is the size of the rooms. There’s barely enough space for Clarke, Octavia and Clarke’s bag when they all stand side by side on the small strip of available floor.

“Make yourself comfortable.” Octavia tells her. “I’ll just go grab dinner.”

As the door shuts behind her, Clarke crosses the room and drops the blind before stripping into her pyjamas: Winnie the Pooh, ultimate comfort clothes. She picks her customary spot on the mattress, the outer edge of the bed with her head and upper shoulders resting on the four pillows Octavia insists on sleeping with.

Octavia’s room might be small, but it’s cute, no doubt about it. Her walls are covered in posters that she picked up in a sale at the start of the semester in the ASU, her window, although currently hidden from view, is still papered with orange pumpkin cut-outs from Halloween, and there are several strings of white fairy lights draped over every surface. Her cork board is covered in invitations, cards, photos and a giant print of the Prisoner of Azkaban film poster. Clarke smiles when she spots the picture that’s currently her lock screen in the top corner.

“With the compliments of the chef,” Octavia announces grandly as she shoulders her way in, carrying two bowls (Octavia doesn’t actually own any plates), “and the chef says to eat up, you ungrateful shit.”

Clarke snorts and accepts the food.

Octavia climbs over her precariously, then curses and climbs back. “What are we watching?”

“Um, I don’t mind. Up to you.”

Octavia rolls her eyes. “You are the most indecisive person I’ve ever met when you’re depressed, Griffin.”

Clarke shrugs. She’s not about to disagree.

“Fine.” Octavia sighs, exasperated. “We’re watching Lord of the Rings, and you brought it upon yourself.”

It’s Clarke’s turn to roll her eyes, because sure, she likes the books- it was just the whole look of the world in the film just didn’t match up to her imaginings of Middle Earth. But still, it’s a good story, so she doesn’t actually complain. Octavia clambers back into her spot (in the corner between Clarke and the wall, where she can rest on Clarke as the film progresses) and the opening sequence begins to roll.

They’ve finished their food by the time the first Nazgul rocks up, and it doesn’t take long for the question Clarke has waited for to be asked. Frodo has just passed out after Arwen’s carried him across the river to Rivendell, when Octavia asks, faux-casually,

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Clarke tenses up.

“It’s just that,” Octavia presses, “it’s been a while since it got this bad. And I don’t even know how bad _bad_ is because you won’t talk to me about it.”

 _You’ll find out how **bad** it is when you wake up to me crying tonight,_ Clarke thinks, but she doesn’t say it.

Instead, she shrugs. “It was just a day, O.” She says it awkwardly, but Octavia stops pushing. It’s how things have always been between them. Octavia knows her better than anyone, but she still stops short of the real hurt that’s inside Clarke’s soul, because Clarke can handle everything apart from that level of vulnerability. Anyway, Octavia has her own shit to deal with. It’s not like Clarke’s the only one with one parent dead and the other estranged- this is probably the only reason Clarke’s allowed O as close as she has.

They watch the rest of the film in silence, then fit themselves into the narrow bed with the ease of practice and try to sleep.

Octavia does wake up when Clarke cries. She holds her just like always. And then sets an alarm for Clarke’s eleven AM class before leaving for her own.

As Clarke lies in her friend’s bed, somewhere between sleeping and waking, she reflects that she really doesn’t deserve a friend as like Octavia.

 

 

Friday is more successful in some departments and less so in others. Clarke gets up and goes to her classes, but doesn’t actually learn anything. She eats lunch, but not with the others at the ASU- instead she hides out in Arts and Humanities, munching a sandwich from the tiny shop in the Junior Common Room and scrolling through Tumblr. Her meditation comes easier today though, and instead of lying on her bed throughout the afternoon, she gets up and goes for a walk, buffeted by wind and occasionally hit in the face by droplets of rain. It helps her to feel better.

But the day really picks up at eleven at night, as Clarke lies in bed and stares at a textbook (which is a good indication of how desperate things have become).

_Buzz._

_Buzz._

_Buzz buzz_.

Annoyed, Clarke grabs her phone off the desk and opens the Facebook messages (she made good on her promise to Jasper that morning and added Raven to the group chat), expecting Jasper and Monty to be arguing about something pointless.

 

**Expats Chat**

Raven: Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Raven: You guysss

Raven: Whys a raven like a writing desk

**Two minutes later**

Raven: GUYSSSS

Raven: WHYS A RAVEN LIKE A WRITING DESK

 

Clarke’s eyes widen just a touch, and the beginnings of a smile creep across her face.

 

Clarke: Raven, are you drunk?

Raven: anah

Raven: Just tispayyyyyy

Raven: Tipsayyyyyy

Raven: Clarkey, whys a raven like a writing desk?????

 

Clarke snorts. Of all the people, she had not expected vaguely scary Raven to get off her face and start sending ridiculous messages.

 

Clarke: Don’t call me Clarkey, Raven

Raven: NO ragrets

Raven: Answer meeee Clarkey

Clarke: I won’t answer until you apologise for calling me Clarkey

Octavia: Omg

Octavia: This is great

Raven: OCTAVIBABY!!!

Raven: whys a raven like a writing desk

Raven: Come on, one of yous got to answer noww

Octavia: If u ever call me octavibaby again I will slap u

Raven: Why are you both so meeeeeaaaan

Raven: Some day I’ll be livin in a bit old city

Raven: N all your ever gonna b is meaaaann

Clarke: It’s big old city Raven

Clarke: But fine, why is a raven like a writing desk?

Raven: YAAYYYYYYYYYYY

Raven: Clarkey isn’t mean

Raven: I love Clarkey

Raven: <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Clarke: Raven

Octavia: O my jesus Raven

Octavia: Just get to the fucking point so I can go to sleep

Raven: Octavipus is mean

Raven: Shell never live in a bit of city

Raven: But I’ll tell Clarkey

Raven: A araven is like a writing desk because….

Clarke: …Yes?

 

A pause.

 

Raven: I can’t remember now

Octavia: U can’t remember the punchline to ur own joke

 

Clarke is actually laughing aloud by this point, staring at her phone in the darkness and chuckling.

 

Raven: LIKE I CAREEE

Raven: I’m gonna have fun now

Raven: without u 2 loserrrrsssss

 

And Raven goes offline.

 

Octavia: Clarke why are we friends with her

Clarke: Because she allows us to live vicariously through her drunk messages the true life of a student?

Octavia: As opposed to actually living the life of a student

Clarke: Says the one who is going to sleep now

Octavia: … Like u aren’t

Clarke: I have no shame in my hermit status

Octavia: Whatever

Octavia: Goodnight

Clarke: Goodnight *kiss emoji*

 

Saturday morning brings an alarm, which is not a state of affairs Clarke is familiar with. Indeed, when the familiar noise shatters her slumber, she wonders briefly if she’s mixed up the days and yesterday was, in fact, Thursday.

But no- it is Saturday. And that is her alarm. Clarke grumbles and staggers upright, hair a mess, and begins dragging herself together.

Bag, purse, phone, keys, directions scribbled out on a scrap of paper. Clarke drags on her jeans (the boring plain pair, the ones she doesn’t mind ruining) and the most sporty t-shirt she can find, then adds about five extra layers to keep out the chill. She just has time to stuff a piece of toast in her mouth before bounding out the door and heading down the road in the opposite direction to her classes.

She manages to find the bus shelter five minutes before the bus is supposed to arrive, and she waits.

And waits.

 _And waits_.

 

By the time the lumbering, mud-spattered single-decker turns up Clarke is seriously worried she’s going to be late. The journey should take half an hour, and it’s 9:29 by the time Clarke takes her seat. They jounce off down the road, every pothole and roundabout reminding Clarke why she doesn’t take buses, and she glares out of the smeary window as the suburbs gradually turn to countryside.

It feels so English, the scenery that rolls past: thick, brown, twiggy hedges, stark trees, straggling grass on the verges. It’s winter, so no flowers, but a few red berries are starting to show here and there. The sun darts in and out of the clouds, casting patches of light over the wide fields. Clarke can feel her scowl fading as she takes it in, and she almost smiles the few times she glimpses horses roaming behind white tape fences flash past.

The universe evidently feels it owes her some kindness, because Clarke is five minutes early for her lesson when the bus drops her at the end of the drive. A large wooden sign has ‘Polis Stables- Livery and Riding Lessons’ picked out in green stained letters, and Clarke walks briskly up the winding track.

The place is a little ramshackle compared to the neatly swept barns that Clarke remembers from her childhood, but it still smells the same: the mixture of hay and leather and dry sand from the school. The scent brings an unexpected smile to her face, and she bounds up the steps to the small office.

The tiny space is cramped with two other people but it is blessedly warm. Clarke fidgets and looks at the posters tacked up on the far wall as a middle-aged woman pays for a lesson for the tiny girl who hides a little behind her leg at the sight of Clarke. Clarke gives her encouraging smile, then goes back to perusing the adverts for ‘Own a Pony Days’ and ‘Polis Stables Year Calendars’.

By the time Clarke reaches the little window, the clock on the wall shows it’s ten exactly, but the woman on the other side (short brown hair, big smile, business like in every movement) tells her not to worry.

“They’re usually late finishing the 9:30, pet, you’ve got time to get kitted out. Nathan!” She bellows, and a tiny elfin boy of about ten years old pops around the door behind Clarke.

“Take Clarke here to the kit room, please? Then show her to her horse.”

“Thank you.” Clarke tells her, then turns and follows Nathan back outside into the bitter cold.

 

The kid leads her through a gate and between two rows of stables, and some curious horses watch them walk past, or regard the general activity going on around them. Clarke can feel a silly grin starting on her face just from being here- maybe this would actually turn out to be one of her better ideas. It sounds ridiculous when she says it in her head, but the whole enterprise just feels… Wholesome, in a way that nothing else can really produce.

The kit room is at the end of this row, and turns out to be an unheated cabin stacked floor to ceiling with black riding hats and muddy boots. Nathan helps Clarke pick out the right sizes, shows her where to leave her bag and coat then takes her left, round the back of the stables whilst Clarke tries to adjust to the extra weight on her head.

“You’re riding Hardy.” The boy says, flashing her a quick smile as they approach a queue of horses waiting outside what must be the teaching arena. “He’s great.”

Clarke has been trying to ignore the nerves building in her stomach all the while, but as they walk past the four horses waiting patiently for their riders, she feels the anxious fluttering give a particularly hard kick. She’d forgotten how _big_ horses are. It doesn’t exactly help, therefore, that Nathan takes her to the very front of the line, where a brown leviathan chews the bit in his mouth and dwarves the lady holding him.

“This is Clarke.” Nathan tells the lady. “Clarke, this is Hardy and Sylvie.”

The brown horse ignores her, but the lady, Sylvie, smiles at her.

“You’re very lucky to have Hardy for your first lesson, Clarke. Have you been on a horse before?”

“I have,” Clarke replies, tentatively reaching out a hand to stroke the fur on Hardy’s neck, “But it was a few years ago.”

“Ah, you’ll be fine then! You want to lead him in? Looks like they’re almost done in there.”

Clarke hadn’t really been paying attention to what was going on beyond the solid white-painted gate they’re waiting outside. It leads into a sand ring, the sort she remembers, with a viewing gallery down one side and slatted boards making up the walls. There’s a barrier across the middle made from coloured posts and poles, dissecting the available space into two: one ring smaller than the other. The gate Clarke’s outside leads into the small side, and there are already five horses standing in the middle around a slim teacher in a riding hat (a proper one, not the plain, scuffed article that currently weighs on Clarke’s head) and a big green mounting block.

“Sure.” She says gamely, and takes the reins from the lady beside her.

“Hold them under his chin, that’s right, and come round this side. Ready?”

Clarke nods, and the gate is pulled open.

The sand is deep, and for a few horrible seconds Clarke wonders if she’s going to lose her footing and fall face-first into the dirt. Thankfully, she only wobbles for a brief moment before continuing onward, Hardy grudgingly following.

Sylvie directs her round to the far side of the school as the riders from the previous lesson dismount, and Clarke takes the opportunity to properly get a look at Hardy.

He’s big, really big, towering over her. His whole head is probably as long as her torso and his feet- hooves- are like dinner plates next to her puny black boots.

“We’re going to be friends, right, Hardy?” Clarke whispers to him, gently stroking the long bones of his nose. Hardy doesn’t seem bothered either way, but the gesture helps Clarke feel a bit calmer. She remembers that the proper name for Hardy’s colour is bay, because although his fur is brown, his mane and tail are black underneath the dust and dried mud, and that he’s wearing an English saddle and bridle. She used to be able to check that the stirrups were the right length for her legs before getting on, but apparently her brain has thrown out that particular skill in the intervening years. She contents herself with continuing to stroke Hardy’s nose as the other horses file out of the ring.

Sylvie comes over to her, bright eyes smiling at Clarke, and begins to help her get Hardy ready. She shows Clarke how to check the strap that holds on the saddle (the girth, Clarke remembers, how could she have forgotten?) and shortens the stirrups for her.

“Thank you, Sylvie.” A cool voice rings across the arena, and Sylvie stops what she’s doing.

“I’ll leave you to the master, now Clarke.” She says, winking. “Have fun!”

Clarke turns to face her instructor.

 

_Well, what were the freaking chances._

Her instructor is none other than Green Eyed Girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry if you don't like horses! I'm going to try and not include too much jargon and it's not like every chapter from now on is going to include horses... But it's a big thing for both Lexa and Clarke, so it's not like this is the only chapter with our four-legged friends included.  
> I am SO excited for the next chapter! It's going to be quite funny, I hope.


End file.
